Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP) Exam 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Certification

The finding indicating a violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act relates to the requirement that audit firms must rotate audit partners every five years for a public company to ensure independence and minimize any potential conflicts of interest. Having the same audit partner for six years exceeds this mandated time frame and may compromise the objectivity of the audit, as long-term relationships can lead to familiarity threats where the auditor may become too sympathetic to the client's situation or overlook issues that may arise during the audit process.

In contrast, the other findings do not explicitly violate Sarbanes-Oxley provisions in the same manner. The prior employment of the current controller with the previous firm, while a concern for independence, does not inherently violate the specific audit partner rotation requirement. The provision of bookkeeping services by the previous firm does raise concerns about independence but is a separate consideration that does not pertain directly to the audit partner's tenure. Contracting a public accounting firm does not violate any aspect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act unless coupled with conflicts of interest or independence issues, which are not specified in that statement. Therefore, the first finding is the most clear-cut in identifying a direct violation of the Act.