Pearlman on Expanding the Use of Sarbanes-Oxley

Adam Ross Pearlman has posted Putting Terrorists Out of Business: Using Sarbanes-Oxley to Prosecute Terror Financiers on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This article examines the practicality and the utility of prosecuting terrorist financiers for anticipatory obstruction of justice under section 802 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, codified at 18 U.S.C. s. 1519. Section 1519 was written to be a broadly applicable law, designed to go after the "individual shredder" or destructor of evidence in a way that other obstruction statutes (e.g. ss. 1503 and 1512) could not. It has been applied to a variety of defendants, ranging from those charged with possession of child pornography, to those being investigated for health care fraud. The article examines the legislative history and the Supreme Court's ruling in Arthur Anderson (reversing convictions on obstruction charges), and applies that background to the possibility of using this law against those who finance terrorists.