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As a remedy for its so-called “death grip” problem on the new device, Apple announced on Friday that it would send a free case to every iPhone 4 purchaser who wants one, at least until Sept. 30. Sounds like a pretty good deal for a company like Forward Industries (FORD), which manufacturers the Apple-branded “bumper” case for the new iPhone. Forward’s stock shot up 22percent right after Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ announcement. The freebie deal presents an opportunity for other case manufacturers as well: Jobs said his company can’t make enough bumper cases to satisfy anticipated demand, so Apple will also allow customers to get a free third-party case instead. To do this, Apple will post a list of cases to choose from on its website beginning next week, and it will deliver them to customers free of charge. “There’s a tremendous upside for case manufacturers,” said Francis Sideco, principal wireless analyst with supply chain analysis firm iSuppli. “Whatever Apple pays them for the cases, it’s going to be what the manufacturers were going to get from Apple anyway. And the announcement gives them much higher penetration than they would have had before.” Despite four months of letters to the SEC and Congress by the IMA, a meeting with the SEC and Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and testimony to Congress, the SEC and Congress did not move forward on the IMA’s suggestion. Tim Leech, the primary author of the paper for the IMA, says the failure to properly address the issues raised by the IMA led to inadequate implementations of Sarbanes-Oxley. Rules about “integrity, ethics and competence” were specifically excluded from COSO 92, according to a recent article by Leech in Cost Management. Leech believes those and other fatal flaws resulted in failures of companies to adequately address risk and pay measurements. If these concerns sound familiar, they should. Pay and failures of measurement and oversight of risk have been cited as being major drivers that contributed to the financial crisis and “Great Recession.” Integrity, ethics and competence have also figured prominently in the mix.