Climate‐related Risk and Financial Statements: Implications for Regulators,Preparers, Auditors and Users

Interest among investors in understanding climate‐related risk from companies’ management has increased in recent years. Despite this, climate‐related risks are currently predominantly discussed outside the financial statements, if at all. However, as set out in the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB)/International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) Practice Statement 2 Making Materiality Judgements (APS/PS 2), qualitative external factors such as the industry in which the entity operates and investor expectations may make such risks ‘material’ and warrant disclosures when preparing financial statements, regardless of their numerical impact. The AASB and the AUASB expect that directors, preparers and auditors will be considering APS/PS 2 when preparing and auditing financial statements. This paper provides an outline of the guidance and motivation behind the issuance of the bulletin on climate‐related risk disclosures, key takeaways and recommendations, and the AASB's and AUASB's suggestions on the type of evidence that would be useful for standard setters.     

Client Characteristics and the Negotiation Tactics of Auditors: Implications for Financial Reporting

Although the financial statements of an organization are considered a product of management, prior research suggests that a company's financial statements may be affected by the negotiation strategy employed by the auditor when resolving audit differences with management. However, little subsequent research discusses the potential strategies that auditors may employ during the negotiation process. Our study extends the literature by investigating, in a post–Sarbanes‐Oxley environment, whether auditors will employ a reciprocity‐based strategy for the resolution of audit differences and what client characteristics (client management's negotiating style and client retention risk) increase the extent to which it is utilized. Further, we explore the potential effect of a reciprocity‐based strategy on the quality of the financial statements. Such a strategy involves bringing inconsequential items to management and subsequently waiving these items in an effort to encourage management to be more cooperative in the posting of significant income‐decreasing adjustments. The results of experiment 1 indicate that client management's negotiating style and retention risk have an interactive effect on auditors' use of a reciprocity‐based strategy. Specifically, auditors are more likely to utilize a reciprocity‐based strategy when management's negotiating style is competitive and client retention risk is high. Experiment 2 findings suggest that the auditor's use of reciprocity during negotiation can actually result in more conservative financial statements by helping the auditor manage perceived client pressures to waive or reduce proposed adjustments.     

Interbank funding,bank risk exposure and performance in the UK: A three-stage network DEA approach

Operating on unsecured interbank markets exposes banks to various risks which trigger changes in bank strategic outcomes such as risk management and performance. This paper proposes a novel three-stage network data envelopment approach with feedback and alliance to examine the importance of bank risk exposures through interbank funding on bank efficiency levels. Our results show that overall bank performance management is achieved via a complement of good alliance between risk and funding, and financial performance. In addition, high financial or overall performance may not imply better risk management or allied process performance. Rather, banks are inherently performance-driven institutions whose performance objectives are independently optimal but aggregately suboptimal. Further analyses show that, for international banks, high financial or overall performance may not necessarily limit high allied process and risk management. Moreover, risk governance in large banks has not improved despite the increased regulatory pressure induced after the 2007–2008 credit crisis. Our results remain robust regardless of whether the alliance or financial performance stage is given priority in the overall efficiency decomposition, and when the novel resource imbalance index is used to assess and enhance the discriminatory power of performance.     

Do IPOs bear more severe legal consequences of accounting misstatements?

I compare litigation frequency and outcomes associated with restated IPO prospectus financial statements and a matched sample of restated non-IPO financial statements. I find that investors are 8.4% more likely to sue IPO companies than non-IPO companies for misreporting and, more importantly, that the higher litigation rate in IPOs stems from companies with error-type restatements. In addition, I find that IPO suits are more likely to be settled than non-IPO suits. Overall, these results are consistent with plaintiff attorneys’ incentives driving the filing of lawsuits and provide direct evidence that IPO companies face more severe litigation consequences of accounting misstatements than non-IPO companies.Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.     

Using client performance measures to identify pre-engagement factors associated with qualified audit reports in Greece

The purpose of this paper is to test the extent to which client (corporate) performance measures can be used to enhance the ability to discriminate between the choice of a qualified or unqualified (clean) audit report. Audit firms face the risk of losing the client if they issue a qualification. On the other hand, failing to qualify exposes the auditor to potential lawsuits and loss of reputation. We examined the financial statements, auditors' opinions, and financial statements notes for companies in Greece that received a qualified audit report and for those that received an unqualified audit report. We modeled the auditor's qualification using a multicriteria decision aid classification method (UTADIS—UTilités Additives Discriminates) and compared it with other multivariate statistical techniques such as discriminant and logit analysis. The qualification decision is explained by financial ratios and by nonfinancial information such as the client litigation. The developed models are accurate in classifying the total sample correctly with rates of almost 80%.     

Client influence and auditor independence revisited: Evidence from auditor resignations

Financial scandals such as the Enron-Andersen debacle provoke concerns that auditors lack independence when faced with influential clients. Unlike previous studies that examine whether client influence affects audit quality on ongoing engagements (providing mixed results), we investigate whether client influence (which engenders “independence risk”) at the audit-office level affects auditor resignations from high engagement-risk clients. We construct summary measures of engagement risk, using client disclosures on Form 8-K filings, potential risk factors (e.g., litigation risk), and auditor action (e.g., issuance of a going concern opinion) on the previous year’s financial statements. Focusing on risky clients, we find that auditors are more likely on average to resign from influential clients, and this positive association holds for auditors that are less likely to have mechanisms in place to mitigate independence risk. Also, importantly, influential clients are prevalent across the spectrum of client size, and the positive association between client influence and auditor resignations holds for both large and small clients.     

The influence of litigation risk and internal audit source on reliance decisions

External auditor reliance on the work of internal auditors in an integrated audit of the financial statements and internal control is an important audit planning procedure that can impact audit efficiency and effectiveness. The purpose of this study is to examine how perceived auditor litigation risk and internal audit source affect external auditors' reliance decisions in an integrated audit environment under varying levels of risk of material misstatement. In an experimental study using 89 practicing Big 4 auditors, this study finds that auditors who perceive low litigation risk from placing reliance on the work of internal auditors will rely more on outsourced internal auditors than in-house internal auditors. The results also show that auditors' reliance decisions are sensitive to the level of account risk consistent with the risk-based approach to the integrated audit encouraged by the PCAOB.     

Audit Firm Attributes and Auditor Litigation Risk

This study examines the association between auditors' litigation risk and audit firm attributes. Using professional liability insurance premiums as a proxy for auditors' litigation risk, we present evidence that the risk is lower in audit firms having: (1) separate non-audit and audit divisions; (2) a higher proportion of partners; and (3) a higher annual growth in number of CPAs employed. Additionally, we find that the risk is higher in audit firms having: (1) operating losses; and (2) high revenue growth. Our results are consistent with the idea that audit firms' financial condition and organizational structure affect their independence/ expertise, and, in turn, their litigation risk. Our results are broadly supportive of the PCAOB's (2015) and US Department of Treasury's (2008) views that investors, audit committees, management, and other regulators could benefit from having access to financial and organizational information about audit firms.     

Accounting and litigation risk: evidence from Directors’ and Officers’ insurance pricing

We study whether and how financial reporting concerns are priced by insurers that sell Directors’ and Officers’ (D&O) insurance to public firms. As D&O insurers typically assume the liabilities arising from shareholder litigation, the premiums they charge for D&O coverage reflect their assessment of a company’s litigation risk. Using a sample of public firms in the 2001–2004 Tillinghast D&O insurance surveys, we document that firms with lower earnings quality or prior accounting restatements pay higher premiums after controlling for other factors impacting litigation risk. In addition, insurers’ concerns about financial reporting are most evident for firms with restatements that are not revenue or expense related, are greater in the period following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, and are greater for firms with financial reporting problems that linger. Our results are consistent with past restatements being viewed as evidence of chronic problems with a firm’s financial statements. By analyzing archival data, we can also quantify the effects of other determinants of D&O premiums (such as business risk, corporate governance, etc.) identified by Baker and Griffith (Univ Chic Law Rev 74(2):487–544, 2007a) through interviews regarding the D&O underwriting process.     

Auditor litigation: Evidence that revenue restatements are determinative

This study extends the Palmrose and Scholz (2004) general litigation and general restatements study by focusing on auditor litigation and revenue restatements. We investigate all potential accounting issues, individually, instead of by their group method, with regard to auditor litigation. The impact of the individual accounting issues implicated in restatements is of concern to auditors and audit standard setters in gauging auditor litigation risk and audit risk. It also is important for financial analysis and securities valuation because investors' losses are greater, and recovery of losses on a percentage basis is lower, when the auditor is a defendant, and especially when the auditor has a more severe, negative litigation experience (Commolli et al., 2012). We examine financial reporting lawsuits filed from 2001 to 2008 and find that revenue restatements—far more than any other kind of restatements—are associated with auditors being named defendants and also auditors experiencing a more severe, negative outcome in the litigation.     

财务会计的本质、特点及其边界

为了指明财务会计的本质特点 ,我认为财务报表是财务报告的中心部分 ,而报表附注、其他财务报告等传送财务信息方法仅是次要的手段。在财务报表上确认的任何项目 ,都必须符合可定义性、可计量性、相关性与可靠性的特征。会计程序包括计量、记录和报告都必须以确认为基础。因此 ,财务报表的信息可以按真实和公允的要求来描述财务业绩和现金流量。财务会计的基本职能既不试图提供可能的未来的信息 ,又不产生非财务信息。财务会计的主要目的是通过它的报表反映一个企业经济活动及其结果的真实图像。结论 :财务会计作为一门学科是历史科学 ;作为一项实务是一个信息系统 ,它的任务是为企业提供历史的财务信息。     

Explaining qualifications in audit reports using a support vector machine methodology

The verification of whether the financial statements of a firm represent its actual position is of major importance for auditors, who should provide a qualified report if they conclude that the financial statements fail to meet this requirement. This paper implements support vector machines (SVMs) to develop models that may support auditors in this task. Linear and non‐linear models are developed and their performance is analysed using training samples of different size and out‐of‐sample/out‐of‐time data. The results show that all SVM models are capable of distinguishing between qualified and unqualified financial statements with satisfactory accuracy. The performance of the models over time is also explored. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Financial Statements as Monitoring Mechanisms: Evidence from Small Commercial Loans

Using a data set that records banks’ ongoing requests of information from small commercial borrowers, we examine when banks use financial statements to monitor borrowers after loan origination. We find that banks request financial statements for half the loans and this variation is related to borrower credit risk, relationship length, collateral, and the provision of business tax returns, but in complex ways. The relation between borrower risk and financial statement requests has an inverted U‐shape; and tax returns can be both substitutes and complements to financial statements, conditional on borrower characteristics and the degree of bank–borrower information asymmetry. Frequent financial reporting is used to monitor collateral, but only for non–real estate loans and only when the collateral is easily accessible to lenders. Collectively, our results provide novel evidence of a fundamental information demand for financial reporting in monitoring small commercial borrowers and a specific channel through which banks fulfill their role as delegated monitors.     

Functional fixation: Experimental evidence on the presentation of financial information through different digital formats

This study examines whether, in the presentation of financial information, digital formats address the concern over users’ functional fixation. The accounting literature indicates that the presentation of financial information either within the financial statements or in the notes to the financial statements often creates functional fixation where users of financial statements fail to adjust for differences in accounting policy. This leads users to judge what would otherwise be identical financial situations as being different due to the different accounting policies and methods adopted. It has been suggested that the use of digital formats in presenting financial reports may overcome functional fixation. Using an experimental design involving accountants in public practice, the results indicate that the use of digital formats to present financial reports does not fully overcome the issue of functional fixation in the processing of financial information. Although the participants were able to identify and extract relevant information, irrespective of whether or not the information was presented within the financial statements or in the notes to the accounts, the evidence indicates that functional fixation remained when the participants made final decisions based on available information. This suggests that functional fixation may not be caused by access to or extraction of information but by the level of perceived significance based on where the information is reported in the financial statements. In general, the results indicate that current technology may not be able to fully reduce functional fixation in the evaluation of financial information prepared in accordance with different accounting policies and methods.     

Onesource Corporate Consulting,Inc.: Tax and financial reporting considerations

This case places you in the role of a new staff accountant at a public accounting firm who is asked to research financial accounting and tax issues for a client engagement. The client, Onesource Corporate Consulting, Inc. is a large, rapidly growing and successful consulting firm that specializes in corporate restructuring work, forensic investigations, litigation consulting, strategic communications consulting, economic consulting, and technology development. You must research issues affecting the company’s financial statements and tax reporting, including: contingent debt, forgivable loans issued to employees, revenue recognition for various types of contracts, and lease incentives. You will likely find this case challenging. However, this case is based on a real company and the research and analysis required in this case is reflective of issues and assignments you may encounter early in your career.     

Audit firm, corporate governance, and audit quality: Evidence from Bahrain

The aim of this research is to document the perceptions of credit and financial analysts with regard to the relationship between the effectiveness of audit committee, size of the auditing firm and audit quality in the context of Bahrain, which is characterized by a developed financial sector, low-liquidity stock market, low turnover in board of directors of listed firms, an inactive merger and acquisitions market and almost non-extent litigation. A survey of 300 credit and financial analysts shows that analysts considered auditors' opinion useful. Both credit and financial analysts see the credibility of financial statements to be a function of the size of the auditing firm. Both groups assume that the characteristics of Big-Four firms allow them to produce better-quality reports than non-Big firms. Non-audit services were found to affect auditor's independence and hence impair audit quality. Both the groups of analysts believe that effective audit committee enhances the quality of audit reports. Financial analysts perceive financial statements to be more credible than do credit analysts.     

合并报表与母公司报表的有用性:理论分析与经验检验

本文从我国要求母公司同时编制和提供合并报表和母公司报表这一制度安排出发,检验了合并报表和母公司报表的有用性。研究得出,按照现行会计制度编制的合并报表在预测集团经营成果和现金流量方面并没有显著优于母公司报表。在分析上市公司的综合财务状况和偿债能力方面,母公司报表可以提供显著的增量信息。     

Litigation risk,underpricing, and money-losing IPOs

We examine the impact of firms' pre-IPO earnings on the relationship between litigation risk and IPO underpricing. We confirm the insurance effect of the lawsuit avoidance hypothesis; however, we find that the use of underpricing to reduce litigation risk is mainly associated with firms with negative earnings at the time of going public. Our results are robust to the timelines over which sample firms were sued, alternative underpricing measures, the addition of various control variables to our baseline regression models, and different proxies to categorize IPO firms. We also investigate the relationship between litigation risk, pre-IPO earnings, and underwriter gross spreads. The results indicate that, when dealing with firms facing a high risk of litigation, underwriters charge significantly higher spreads to negative-earnings issuers than profitable IPO firms.     

Financial expertise on audit committees of loan applicants: a research note to test the effects on lending decisions

The purpose of this study is to examine whether audit committee financial expertise matters when making commercial lending decisions. Commercial lenders rely on audited financial statements in making lending decisions, and the quality of these financial statements is impacted by the capabilities of audit committees having oversight of financial reporting. It is widely believed that this oversight is enhanced when audit committees contain members with financial expertise. A behavioural experiment is conducted where commercial lending officers make risk assessments and provide probabilities of granting loans based on a hypothetical scenario. This paper finds insufficient evidence to conclude that the existence of financial expertise on audit committees makes a difference to lenders. When replacing audit committee members, however, financial expertise does appear to matter to lenders in some cases.     

Litigation risk,accounting quality,and investment efficiency

This paper examines the moderating effect of litigation risk on the relationship between accounting quality and investment efficiency. We use directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance as a proxy for litigation risk, accruals quality for accounting quality, and investment cash flow sensitivity for investment efficiency (Biddle & Hilary, 2006; Hovakimian & Hovakimian, 2009). Using Canadian data from 1998 to 2008, we show that firms with higher D&O insurance coverage exhibit lower quality accruals. Moreover, the previously documented negative association between accruals quality and investment cash flow sensitivity is stronger (weaker) when abnormal D&O coverage is low (high), suggesting that the role of accounting quality in facilitating investment efficiency is conditional upon observable litigation risk.