Sarbanes-Oxley: Issue of corporate executive responsibility

Sarbanes-Oxley: Issue of corporate executive responsibility for financial statements

It has been said that many corporate executives seemed to believe that it was their job not to produce accurate financial statements for the auditors to certify, but rather to bully the auditors into certifying as aggressive a set of financial statements as possible. Explain why you agree or disagree with this statement.

Prior to the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, CEOs and CFOs would testify that they did not know that their companies' financial statements were incorrect and thereby had plausible deniability. Explain how Sarbanes-Oxley addresses this situation.