5 million annually to comply with the law. The increases in spending (resulting in less spending in marketing and administration) for many energy companies will be in "security, grid reliability, and wholesale market operations" (Gartner, 2004).
The cost of providing the Securities and Exchange Commission with "two declarations" regarding internal financial controls certainly is significant; and those dollars take away revenue from other departments of utility companies, unless, a utility expects to just absorb additional costs. PriceWaterhouseCoopers' (www.pwc.com p. 4) "Sustainable From the Start" document points to a company's duty under SOX to one, "state its responsibility for creating and maintaining adequate internal controls over financial reporting"; and two, issue an independent report as to whether the auditor agrees with management's conclusion (www.pwc.com p. 9) or not. Moreover, PWC asserts that for some companies SOX has "tipped the emphasis the wrong way and forced companies to get stuck in process as the expense of productivity and profit"; indeed, the cost of paying auditors and consultants to do the work required by SOX certainly is draining revenue from some departments -- and those drained departments could well be administration and marketing.
Bryan Cote, writing in the Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal, suggests that companies could lesson the financial impact of SOX audits -- and hence, not have to cut back in departments the utilities rely on for sustained growth such as marketing...
Secondly, Cote suggests aligning business and it processes for cost-effectiveness; and thirdly, companies should conduct "regular, proactive self-assessment of key control processes" reducing the time and validating "compliance status" prior to an audit being conducted.
Works Cited
Cote, Bryan. (2008). Failed Audit? Preventing Failure -- while streamlining the audit
Process. Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Journal. Retrieved May 8, 2009, from http://www.s-ox.com/dsp_getFeaturesDetails.cfm?CID=2022.
Gartner. (2004). Industry Research: Energy Utility Companies Weight in on Sarbanes-
Oxley and Disaster Recovery. Retrieved May 6, 2009, from http://www.sox.weblog.gartner.com.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers. (2006). Sustainable from the start: Sarbanes-Oxley 404
Implementation by oil & gas and utility foreign private issuers. Retrieved May 7,
2009 from http://www.pwc.com.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act. (2005). A Guide to Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404. Retrieved May 6,
2009 from http://www.soxlaw.com/404.htm.
Sarbanes-Oxley Act. (2004). Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://www.soxlaw.com.
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. (2006). Division of Corporation Finance:
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 -- Frequently Asked Questions." Retrieved May 6, 2009,
From http://www.sec.gov.
