SOX News

Audit Integrity, Leading Researchers on Corporate Risk, Announces Top 100 Firms as Best in Corporate Integrity

(March 31, 2008)-- Honoring the US corporations with the highest ratings for integrity in 2007, Audit Integrity today made public the second annual Audit Integrity Top 100 report. As experts in risk analysis on public companies, Audit Integrity provides its subscribers with ratings and reports on the best and worst of public corporations, based on its proprietary Accounting and Governance Risk rating, a measure of corporate integrity. The Audit Integrity Top 100 reflects its view of the most trustworthy companies in the US. The full report may be downloaded at www.auditintegrity.com.

In the year when the subprime meltdown sent shocks across the market – destroying equity and illuminating glaring failures in risk management – these 100 firms earned Audit Integrity’s recognition for transparency in financial reporting and management aligned with the interests of corporate stakeholders. Companies with high integrity ratings, as a group, consistently avoid many high risk events such as litigation, financial restatements, and regulatory actions. One of the rewards of this good behavior has been market-beating equity returns.

“There is a dangerous misperception that new financial disclosure and auditing requirements associated with Sarbanes-Oxley have alleviated the risk associated with fraud and opaque financial reporting,” said James A. Kaplan, chairman and founder of Audit Integrity. “Sarbanes-Oxley has helped improve transparency, but as 2007 clearly illustrated it does not provide protection against fraud, mismanagement or incompetence.”

Audit Integrity’s AGR ratings, as a proxy for corporate integrity, are monitored by insurers, auditors, investors and other concerned corporate stakeholders to assess and manage their risk in dealing with public companies. The AGR is the only comprehensive, broadly applied assessment of corporate integrity, combining forensic accounting techniques with evaluation of corporate governance practices. The AGR Company Profiles, updated quarterly, offer specifics on questionable behavior and the impact on risk.

“Risk management is often focused on avoiding the riskiest companies, and we help our clients do that,” notes Jack Zwingli, CEO of Audit Integrity. “But it is equally important to note that good corporate behavior has many benefits to stakeholders, and we take great pleasure in saluting those companies we found to be integrity leaders.”

Share or bookmarklet this web page at: