The acconting reforms that were designed to hold executives accountable are uncovering more and more problems, reports the Washington Post. And the paper implies, that’s not always a good thing.

It cites the example of the Mills Corp., which restated its accounting for a joint venture. That led to a second restatement and a slew of catastrophes that have damaged the company. “But by upping the consequences for mistakes, it also has created an environment of near-constant internal review, a setting in which companies such as Mills might start pulling on the thread of a problem only to prompt a larger unraveling as other issues are unearthed,” writes the paper.

These threads that reveal larger problems are still revealing problems. And that was supposed to happen. Most companies performance won’t be improved by pretending that there are no problems or that they are only a minor trifle. Remember, Ken Lay’s defense will be that Enron would have been fine if analysts and journalists hadn’t caused the market to panic and dump the stock.

“The general consensus is [the restatements are] an indication of how well Sarbanes-Oxley is actually working,” Kurt Schacht, managing director of the Centre for Financial Market Integrity at the CFA Institute, tells the paper. “What you’re seeing in essence is deferred maintenance, the fixing of internal controls that have been neglected, and in the first years after Sarbanes-Oxley, they will be weeded out. Over time, restatements will come down.”

Others doubt that but these were all restatements that should have been made.