Title: Accelerating Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
Policy area: Finance and Financial Sector

Summary:
Accelerating Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act
This bill revises provisions related to the required certification to the Securities and Exchange Commission by certain publicly traded companies that they are not owned or controlled by a foreign government.
Under current law, a company must make this certification if the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board is unable to audit specified reports because the company has retained a foreign public accounting firm not subject to inspection by the board due to a position taken by an authority in that foreign jurisdiction. Under this bill, a company must submit this certification if a position taken by any foreign government (not only the foreign government in which the firm is located) prevents inspection of the firm.
Furthermore, under current law, if the board is unable to inspect the company's public accounting firm for three consecutive years, the company's securities are banned from trade on a national exchange or through other methods. The bill reduces this time to two consecutive years.

[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6285 Introduced in House (IH)]

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117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 6285

    To amend the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to institute a trading 
  prohibition for certain issuers that retain public accounting firms 
    that have not been subject to inspection by the Public Company 
          Accounting Oversight Board, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           December 14, 2021

  Mr. Sherman (for himself, Mrs. Spartz, and Mr. Barr) introduced the 
   following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial 
                                Services

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
    To amend the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to institute a trading 
  prohibition for certain issuers that retain public accounting firms 
    that have not been subject to inspection by the Public Company 
          Accounting Oversight Board, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Accelerating Holding Foreign 
Companies Accountable Act''.

SEC. 2. TRADING PROHIBITION FOR 2 CONSECUTIVE NON-INSPECTION YEARS.

    Section 104(i) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 
7214(i)) is amended--
            (1) in paragraph (2)(A)(ii), by striking ``the foreign 
        jurisdiction described in clause (i)'' and inserting ``a 
        foreign jurisdiction''; and
            (2) in paragraph (3)--
                    (A) in the paragraph heading, by striking ``3'' and 
                inserting ``2''; and
                    (B) in subparagraph (A), in the matter preceding 
                clause (i), by striking ``3'' and inserting ``2''.
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