Sarbanes-Oxley costs BP $100m a year
BP chief executive, Lord Browne, admits compliance with Sarbox has cost his company dearly
Compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley has cost Britain’s biggest company, BP, $100m
a year.
BP chief executive, Lord Browne has told The Daily Telegraph that
the oil giant’s ‘external costs’ incurred by complying with Sarbox have topped
$100m (£60m) a year.
‘Of course, that doesn’t count the time we spend on it internally,’ he told
the paper. ‘The fact is that we do it and we do it very efficiently and
comprehensively.
‘I don’t see any easy way back from where we are at the moment. I just don’t
see it. It’s possible that someone some time will have a very, very good idea
that maybe it’s excessive, maybe it should be rolled back… I do see a bit of
moderation in the rate of increase.’
He said that increasing demand for corporate transparency following US
scandals such as Enron and WorldCom has been one of the biggest changes on the
business landscape in the past 10 years.