Final answer:
Enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act intensified after the financial scandals at Enron and WorldCom. The act aims to protect investors by improving financial disclosures and preventing accounting fraud, addressing issues of corporate crime.
Step-by-step explanation:
Enforcement of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, if only in the United States, became more vigorous following high-profile financial scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and other corporations. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was a legislative response to a number of major accounting scandals and was designed to increase confidence in financial information provided by public corporations, thereby protecting investors from accounting fraud. This act required strict reforms to improve financial disclosures from corporations and prevent accounting fraud.
Examples of corporate crime include embezzlement, fraud, and insider trading. The high-profile scandals that preceded the Sarbanes-Oxley Act fall into this category, with companies misrepresenting their financial status to inflate stock prices and secure investments under false pretenses, harming investors and the market at large.