Internal control and records management: How should we respond to Japanese version of SOX?

Abstract

Due to the successive emergence of corporate scandals also in Japan, following in the steps of Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in the U.S. Financial Services Agency is going to establish Japanese version of SOX by amending Securities Exchange Law. The object of this new law is to strengthen the mechanism of internal control in companies, but as a matter of fact, it is the legal system to impose the documentation of business performance, status of internal management, decision-making process at the board of directors in companies, and to require certified public accountants to review it at auditing. This paper describes on how closely the internal control relates to records management, what kind of requirements would be needed for records management for internal control. Besides, it shall explain it as a representative example of my suggestion about the shift from "records management for inside control" to "records management for accountability", that is to say, "paradigm shift in records management"