Walmart May Have Violated Sarbanes-Oxley Law

Walmart shares continued to take a beating on Tuesday amid allegations that the company covered up a bribery scandal in its Mexican operations.

Kim Souza with our content partner, The City Wire, follows the latest developments here.

She reports that CNBC analyst Jim Kramer agrees with other analysts’ assessments that top management at Walmart will be under fire. He also walks through some of the potential consequences, especially Walmart’s apparent lack of self-reporting of the matter six years ago. It could be a violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley law.

CNBC Mad Money host Jim Kramer said Walmart is already a company that is not well loved in several circles. This major scandal only seeks to make things worse at least in the short term as the company’s top management team must face the music for not self reporting more than six years ago when the bribery allegations were brought to their attention, he said.

Kramer said Monday, there a slew of possible consequences for the current management team and the slight possibility the company’s Mexican bank charter could be revoked if it is tied in any way to the alleged payments.

While Walmart has come forward in recent days citing an investigation started late last year, Kramer and other analysts say the company is a little late to the show given the bribery allegations date back to 2005.

“Sarbanes Oxley requires companies to self-report as soon as they know of improprieties which should have been found by an independent compliance committee. When that happens the penalties are generally lighter,” Kramer said.