Search results

This study examines the effects of key audit matter (KAM) disclosures in auditors' reports on auditor liability in cases of fraud and error misstatements using evaluators with audit experience.

The experiment is conducted using 174 professional auditors as participants.

The participating auditors assess higher auditor liability when misstatements are related to errors rather than when they are related to fraud. In addition, the results also demonstrate that KAM disclosures reduce auditor liability only in cases of fraud and not in cases of errors. Together, the results support the view that KAM reduces the negative affective reactions of evaluators, which in turn, reduce the assessed auditor liability.

This study did not analyze the setting in which auditors who act as peer evaluators had an opportunity to discuss the case among their peers, which may have affected their judgments.

The results of KAM disclosures on auditor liability in cases of error and fraud misstatements inform auditors that, different from the auditors' concern that disclosing KAM may increase auditors' legal risk, it tends to decrease or at least have no impact on the liability judgment.

This study contributes to the accounting literature by adding findings on another aspect of KAM in different audit settings, particularly, in the Thai legal environment with different types of undetected misstatements. The current conflicting results on how KAM disclosures affect auditor liability warrant further investigation of this issue in other audit contexts in different countries.

Compares auditors’ legal liability to third parties in several major countries, with principal emphasis on comparisons between the USA and the UK. Public accountants claim that they are being adversely affected by lawsuits brought by shareholders, creditors and other third parties. It has been asserted, without any specific evidence, that increased exposure to legal liability has caused public accounting firms to cease the practice of auditing or go out of business entirely. Details auditors’ legal liability to third parties in the USA and Europe and, in particular, the UK. Concludes by reviewing certain positions taken by the Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens with respect to auditors’ legal liability in the face of European economic and political union.

This paper investigates the perceptions of senior auditors in large firms in Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand concerning sources of auditor legal liability, what should constitute auditors’ duties and what may be done to reduce litigation exposure. Results are consistent with our conjecture that professional and organisational culture dominates perceptions, even in the presence of quite strong jurisdictional, cultural and institutional differences. The analysis indicates that auditors’ perceptions are strongly affected by international trends, while cultural and institutional effects tend to be more subtle but are identified by detailed and focused analysis.

Examines the legal environment of the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA with respect to auditor liability. Provides an understanding of the legal risks to accountants associated with third‐party uses of audited financial statements by contrasting accounting liability for negligent misrepresentation in various US settings with those of the four other nations. Liability pressure has been very acute and litigation in the five countries has increased. Evidence supports a trend towards limiting third‐party liability to accountants.

The Hong Kong Society of Accountants proposes to allow incorporating audit practices in Hong Kong. Finds that auditors are anxious about their increasing risk and the legal liabilities of their work, believing that incorporation is the best method to protect their interests. Many auditors believe that the profession should place the public interests at the top but the interests of the profession should also be protected. Therefore incorporation of the audit practice is necessary in Hong Kong, but strict rules should be imposed to prevent abuse. In addition, finds that clients are not concerned about this issue. The bankers will give a lower value to the audited financial statements issued by incorporated audit firms. In implementation, the professional indemnity insurance and the minimal capital requirement will become the key concern of auditors to incorporate their audit firms.

This paper aims to investigate the relation between audit firms’ switch to limited liability partnership (LLP) from limited liability company (LLC) and client firms’ earnings comparability. If LLP auditors, who have a higher liability exposure than LLC auditors, are more consistent in implementing generally accepted accounting principles and executing firm-wide audit methodologies, client firms’ earnings comparability will increase.

Using data from China, the authors examine whether client firm-pairs of LLP auditors have higher earnings comparability than client firm-pairs of LLC auditors. The authors also perform cross-sectional tests to shed light on the mechanisms through which auditors’ litigation exposure affects client firms’ comparability.

The authors find that firm-pairs in which both firms are audited by LLP auditors exhibit higher earnings comparability than other firm-pairs. This result is stronger when client firms are audited by the same auditor, when client firms are audited by the top 10 auditors and when the auditors are less dependent on the client firms. The authors also document that firm-pairs in which both firms are audited by LLP auditors have lower average analyst earnings forecast error and forecast dispersion.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relation between auditor’s litigation exposure and client firms’ earnings comparability. It also extends the literature on audit firm organizational form and audit quality.

Believes that the rapid development of the market system in the People’s Republic of China should encourage Chinese certified public accountants (CPAs) to examine themselves and recognize the importance of exercising due professional care, in order to develop in an international and healthy manner. Because the time of reconstructing the CPAs system in China is short, most attention is paid to how the CPAs profession can develop rapidly and to general professional management. However, the lack of consciousness of what “due care” is and what comprises the legal standards of due care contributes to confusion about its role. Feels that in order to promote the consciousness of audit liability, the law needs perfecting, and technical standards, audit theory, and court procedures need improvement before resolution of the auditors’ liability issue can be achieved.

Using China’s key audit matters (KAMs) data, this study aims to examine whether negative press coverage alleviates boilerplate KAMs.

This study uses Levenshtein edit distance (LVD) to calculate the horizontal boilerplate of KAMs and investigates how boilerplate changes under different levels of the perceived legal risk.

The findings indicate that auditors of firms exposed to substantial negative press coverage will reduce the boilerplate of KAMs. This association is more significant for auditing firms with lower market share and client firms with higher financial distress. Additionally, the authors find that negative press coverage is more likely to alleviate the boilerplate disclosure of KAMs related to managers’ subjective estimation and material transactions and events. Furthermore, the association between negative press coverage and boilerplate KAMs varies with the source of negative news.

The findings suggest that upon exposure to negative press coverage, reducing the boilerplate of KAMs has a disclaimer effect for auditors.

This study aims to examine the effect of state-level legal risk on audit fee pricing in the USA. This study hypothesizes that auditors are more likely to charge higher audit fees to clients headquartered in states with higher legal risk in terms of probability of being sued, expected size of damages allocated to the auditors and breadth of third parties able to claim damages.

This study hypothesizes that higher state-level legal risk leads to higher audit fees. To test this, this study estimates ordinary least squares regressions of audit fees for 56,576 company years from 2001 to 2018 with the three measures of state legal risk and other factors known to affect audit fees.

This study finds that state-level legal risk is positively associated with audit fee pricing for two of three measures. Interestingly, the third measure, breadth of third parties able to claim damages, is negatively associated with audit fees.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper fulfills an identified need and is the first study to comprehensively test the association between state-level differentials in legal risk and audit fees.

This paper aims to examine the different perspectives of auditors and non-auditors on this question, along with the rationale and impact of these differences. Chinese company law requires an audit report on paid-up capital when business entities are newly formed or their capital altered, which raises questions regarding the liability of auditors should the business entities fail.

Interviews and a questionnaire survey were conducted to analyse how legislation can impact on interested parties in a relatively immature audit environment. The theories of social construction of reality and symbolic interactionism are used as a basis for explaining the different conceptions of capital verification held by interested parties.

There is a mismatch between the purpose of capital verification and the functions of paid-up capital. Paid-up capital is not a reliable indicator of business liquidity and creditworthiness. Auditors and non-auditors have different understandings about the assurance provided by paid-up capital at the point of company formation or auditing field work, and at the point of actual trading after the company formation or auditing field work. They also differ on the causation between deficient capital verification reports and trading loss. The liability crisis adversely influenced auditors’ perception of the capital verification service, although it did not lead to outright rejection by them.

This paper describes an important compliance auditing service in China. By conducting an analysis of the conflicting views of auditors and non-auditors on capital verification, it contributes to the existing literature on the sources of disputes between auditors and other stakeholders, and the efforts to establish a balanced auditor liability regime.