Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts: The Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley Acts are important laws in the corporate world because of their connection to public and private companies. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was enacted to improve transparency and accountability of publicly traded companies. Instead, the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted to untangle the confusing web of financial services firm valuations. In reality, these valuations are usually hidden by complex and unclear financial instruments. The introduction of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was fueled by recent incidents of accounting fraud by top executives of large companies such as Enron. In contrast, the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted as a response to the tendency of banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, rating agencies, and accounting firms to make a damaging offering of ruined assets and liabilities caused by systemic nondisclosure (Anand, 2011, page 1). While these regulations have some similarities and differences, they have a strong relationship with financial markets. Relationship between laws and financial markets: Because they are financial legislation, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act have a strong relationship with modern financial markets. This relationship is mainly attributed to the implications that the acts have on market participants, regulators, investors and markets in general. These acts primarily focus on promoting the health and vitality of financial markets by addressing various practices that could have significant adverse effects on market participants and the economy at large. In fact, Dodd-Frank, which is arguably the most important financial legislation in the modern economy, brought about significant changes that helped change the...... middle of paper ...... the ank Act applies to current or former female executives (Goodman, Olson & Fontenot, 2010, p.72). As a result, Dodd-Frank implements a three-year lookback period while the Sarbanes-Oxley Act implements a one-year lookback period. Bottom line: The Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Dodd-Frank Act are some of the most important regulations in the modern financial environment. The importance of these regulations is attributed to their focus on promoting the vitality of financial markets by addressing the complexities of financial procedures and preventing financial wrongdoing. The implementation of these rules was fueled by some financial irregularities in the corporate world and some major players in the financial markets. Despite the strong link between these laws and financial markets, they have some similarities and differences in light of their respective objectives.