Supreme Court invalidates part of accounting board

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down some federal provisions that created a private regulatory body to inspect and discipline public-company accountants, but the decision doesn't dismantle the accounting board or invalidate the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act as some critics would have liked. The high court, in a 5-4 opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, found fault with some parts of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was created as part of Sarbanes-Oxley to combat corporate accounting scandals in the wake of collapses at Enron and WorldCom. Congress had given the five-member board, a not-for-profit corporation, broad regulatory authority over accounting firms that audit publicly traded companies. Roberts said the structure of the accounting board violated constitutional separation-of-powers principles because it was too difficult for the president to remove board members.