Arizona-Based Businesses Get Gold Star For Good Behavior

In the last few years, it has become fashionable to criticize, and some times even demonize, Arizona corporations for both real and perceived misbehavior. However, in the all-important area of compliance with rules and regulations over the last five years, Arizona businesses have come out ahead of all other states.

A recently-released report by Protecht shows that in the five-year period between 2020 and 2024, Arizona-based businesses received the lowest number of fines per 1,000 businesses, indicating the highest degree of compliance with rules and regulations.

The company that is behind this project, Protecht, specializes in risk management. monitoring and management of risk.”

Risk management has always been a major corporate concern for three reasons:

• Avoiding fines for non-compliance with rules and regulations
• Obtaining favorable treatment by insurance companies
• Being viewed favorably by customers, both current and potential

A positive movement in any of those three areas generally tends to improve the other two.

Here is a table showing the results of the research for the top ten states.

Fewest Corporate Fines per 1,000 Local Businesses
Rank	State	Number of Fines per 1,000 businesses	Total Number of Fines	Total Cost of Fines
1	Arizona	10.46	1,308	$3,165,838,166
2	Utah	11.83	937	$1,677,196,650
3	Florida	13.78	7,209	$9,789,521,388
4	Montana	14.19	513	$333,718,567
5	South Carolina	15.58	1,455	$797,848,695
6	Georgia	16.51	3,370	$1,013,027,365
7	Idaho	16.59	803	$743,846,388
8	Maryland	17.32	1,966	$3,566,131,039
9	Oregon	17.68	1,760	$2,519,228,428
10	Oklahoma	19.09	1,429	$855,438,442

The ranking is based on the number of fines per 1,000 businesses, which is the most accurate way of determining compliance. The other two items are interesting, but are affected by factors other than the rate of compliance.

Protecht has done extensive research beyond fines and compliances. They have looked at the most common and the costliest corporate offenses. The full report on their findings may be viewed HERE A summary of the results is contained in the following two charts:

The most common corporate offenses:

The costliest corporate offenses:

Please note that safety was the number one source of corporate fines in terms of frequency, and a close number two in terms of cost. Since safety is such an important concern for both employees and customers, Arizonans may regard their state’s rank as a good thing.