Corporations spend less on Sarbanes-Oxley

The cost of complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2007 was less than in previous years, according to a new survey. The seventh annual Financial Executives International Sarbanes-Oxley compliance survey included 168 companies with market capitalizations above $75 million. The average cost for Section 404 compliance was $1.7 million. A direct comparison cannot be made to the 2006 survey, because the respondent pool is different each year, but the numbers suggest a downward trend in compliance costs, according to Michael P. Cangemi, FEI president and chief executive. The survey was by the Florham Park, N.J.- based corporate-financial-advocacy group revealed that companies required an average of 11,100 hours’ worth of labor to comply with Section 404 in 2007, an 8.6% decrease from 2006.