Final answer:
Internal control is primarily established to ensure a company's objectives are met by providing reasonable assurance for safeguarding assets, record accuracy, and reliable decision-making information.
Step-by-step explanation:
Internal control within a company is primarily established to provide reasonable assurance that the company's objectives will be achieved. This includes safeguarding assets, maintaining records in sufficient detail to accurately and fairly reflect the company's transactions, and providing information that is accurate, reliable, and timely for decision-making. The board of directors is supposed to oversee this aspect of governance, followed by an auditing firm that reviews financial records to ensure they are reasonable, and outside investors like those with large mutual funds or pension funds seeking accountable corporate management. In the case of Lehman Brothers, there was a failure in corporate governance to provide accurate financial information, depicting the need for strong internal controls.