Corporate compliance comes with a price tag, but two federal enforcement officials on Wednesday stressed the higher potential cost of keeping compliance programs in the original shrink wrap, as Enron Corp. literally did.

"Do not look at it from a profit perspective," said Eric Bustillo, regional director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Miami. "You've got to look at it from the perspective of, if something goes awry, you could end up paying $5 billion."

That was a shorthand reference to Facebook's record-setting settlement with the Federal Trade Commission in July. The SEC reached a settlement of its own worth $100 million.