A new study on conflict minerals compliance from Tulane University and Assent Compliance, a compliance software and services firm, revealed that, about 90% of filers of conflict minerals reports indicated that they were unable to determine if their products were conflict free, the primary object of the conflict minerals due diligence effort. What’s more, for the second year of conflict minerals filings, affected  issuers expended a total of 6 million hours on their compliance and reporting, for an aggregate internal cost of $420 million, as well as additional millions on external costs.  The grand total was estimated to be $709.7 million, an average of half a million dollars per filing issuer.