SEC Slaps Wrists Over SOX Violation

According to the Associated Press, the Securities and Exchange Commission "charged 69 accounting firms and partners on Thursday with violating a landmark 2002 antifraud law by auditing public companies without registering with the board that supervises the accounting industry."

According to Sarbanes-Oxley, accounting firms and accountants that audit public companies must register with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), part of the SEC that provides oversight to the accounting industry:

Without being registered and subject to inspections by the board, the 69 accounting firms and partners around the country together issued audit reports for 53 public companies from November 2003 to October 2005, the S.E.C. said.

Of these, 28 firms and 22 partners were censured by the SEC but didn't have to pay any fines. There are still cases pending.

My question is why have such regulations when you're not going to strictly enforce them when it comes to the very businesses that are supposed to provide the reviews that help investors know if things are on the up and up? Are they claiming that they can provide adequate audits if they can't even get things together enough to register as the law says they should? If slapping wrists is all that happens, then my bet is on yet more problems with public companies going forward. Why not, when there don't seem to be serious consequencies?