Instead, business leaders and corporate clients of law firms are more concerned about reputation, cash-flow and human resources, with corporate governance coming in as the seventh highest risk concern in 2010/11, down four places from 2009/10.

Corporate Governance was the number one risk concern in 2006/07, the third in 2007/08, the second in 2009/09 and third again in 2009/10.

"Legal" specific risks came in as the 11^th concern in the 2010/11 report, down five places from 2009/10.

The benchmarking study found that brand and reputation damage remained the most important risk concern for business leaders for the fourth year in a row, with the increased use of social media cited as particularly concerning for many organisations

Coca-Cola Amatil's general manager for treasury, risk and insurance, Michael Braude, cited social media as a big issue for organisations of his size.

"Someone could decide to use social media to make derogatory remarks about any number of elements associated with an organisation," he said.

Liquidity and capital availability also featured strongly as a risk concern, rising six and seven places up the list respectively.

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Paul Venning, Aon's national general manager for Corporate Risk Solutions, said this was due to financial institutions continuing to tighten their lending following the Global Financial Crisis. "Likewise, 'capital availability/structure' has not appeared in the top 10 risk concerns since 2006 and this year rose seven places to be ranked the number 10 risk concern for 2011," he said.

Aon reported that the survey tracks the top 20 risk concerns based on 446 respondents from major Australian and New Zealand corporate and public sector organisations.