Working with Leading Audit Firm, Oracle Internal Controls Manager Helps Facilitate Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

New Addition to the Oracle E-Business Suite Helps Companies Increase Transparency, Document Policies and Procedures and Assess Risk

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., May 28, 2003 Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), the world's largest enterprise software company, today announced Oracle Internal Controls Manager, a new application within the Oracle E-Business Suite which will help facilitate compliance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires executives and auditors of public companies to document and certify the effectiveness of internal controls and procedures related to financial reporting. Oracle Internal Controls Manager helps companies document and test internal controls and monitor ongoing compliance.

Throughout the development of Oracle Internal Controls Manager, Oracle consulted with the audit firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to secure their feedback and help ensure the product can fully leverage the audit firm's risk assurance services and content.

"Businesses are scrambling to define the new requirements for compliance and governance, and there is a need -- now more than ever -- for companies to look to technology to assist in their compliance efforts," said Lee Geishecker, research vice president, Gartner, Inc.

Increased Controls

Sarbanes-Oxley requires CEOs and CFOs to attest that annual and quarterly financial reports contain no material errors or omissions. With effective controls, executives can better avoid material misstatements and facilitate compliance by documenting business practices and procedures, and proactively finding and fixing potential discrepancies. Oracle Internal Controls Manager provides companies with the ability to create and document internal processes by leveraging the capabilities of Oracle Workflow, a process-modeling tool inherent in the Oracle E-Business Suite. Using Oracle Workflow, Oracle Internal Controls Manager enables companies to design their business processes and store them in a centralized repository, and monitors the business processes to ensure they are performed in the manner in which they were designed. If the system detects any deviations, it will automatically send an alert to the appropriate person.

Tracking Risk

Company executives are now required to identify the risks associated with business processes and the possible effect those risks might have on the company's financial statements. To help companies better understand and track those risks, Oracle Internal Controls Manager enables a company to maintain a library of risks that can be associated with each business process within an organization. Once potential risks are identified, Oracle Internal Controls Manager allows a company to design controls to help mitigate those risks.

Oracle has worked with the risk assurance practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers so that the risk libraries established by the firm can be used as the basis of a company's risk assurance activities. Oracle Internal Controls Manager pulls the risk libraries into the application, giving auditors a framework within which to attest to the effectiveness of internal controls.

"When combined with third party assistance relating to systems processes and controls, Oracle Internal Controls Manager provides companies a framework for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and helps monitor audit and control activities on an ongoing basis," said Jim Barrett, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers Security & Privacy Practice.

Section 404 applies to all companies, including foreign issuers, subject to the periodic reporting requirements of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, yet many privately held companies are also looking to improve their internal controls and the transparency of their processes. Oracle Internal Controls Manager can help them identify and optimize their business processes for increased efficiency and better corporate accountability.

For more information on Oracle Internal Controls Manager, U.S. customers may contact OracleDirect at 1-800-Oracle-1 or an Oracle sales representative. Customers outside the U.S. can find their local OracleDirect phone number at http://www.oracle.com/admin/concierge/popup-us-en.html .

Oracle AppsWorld

Oracle Internal Controls Manager will be demonstrated at Oracle AppsWorld Europe, in a session entitled "Corporate Governance: Internal Controls Manager Overview." Oracle AppsWorld Europe will take place in the ExCeL Conference Centre, London, U.K., from June 23-26, 2003. Further details are available at http://www.oracle.com/appsworld .

About Oracle

Oracle is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle visit out Web site at http://www.oracle.com.

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SOURCE Oracle Corp.
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