IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bracre/v55y2023i2s0890838922000130.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Third-party auditor liability and financial restatements

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Hadi, Ahmed
  • Taylor, Grantley
  • Monzur Hasan, Mostafa
  • Eulaiwi, Baban

Abstract

We examine whether U.S. state-level third-party auditor liability (TPAL) regimes affect firms' financial restatement decisions. Using a sample of 34,409 firm-year observations from 2003 to 2018, we find that state-level TPAL is significantly negatively related to the likelihood of firm-level financial restatements. We also observe that the negative relationship between TPAL and financial restatements persists for a subsample of firms with income-increasing financial restatements and the ‘restatement of torts standard’ (one of the more expansive subgroups of TPAL). Using a difference-in-differences regression design, we find that an increase in state-level TPAL regimes strengthens the negative relationship between TPAL and the incidence of restatements. Our main finding remains robust across several sensitivity tests. Finally, we find that the negative relationship between TPAL and restatements is more pronounced when firms are subject to greater litigation risk and when firms are audited by non-specialist auditors. Overall, we show that TPAL has important implications for client firms' financial restatements.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Hadi, Ahmed & Taylor, Grantley & Monzur Hasan, Mostafa & Eulaiwi, Baban, 2023. "Third-party auditor liability and financial restatements," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:55:y:2023:i:2:s0890838922000130
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bar.2022.101084
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890838922000130
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bar.2022.101084?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy B. Bell & Wayne R. Landsman & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2001. "Auditors' Perceived Business Risk and Audit Fees: Analysis and Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 35-43, June.
    2. Habib, Ahsan & Jiang, Haiyan & Bhuiyan, Md. Borhan Uddin & Islam, Ainul, 2014. "Litigation risk, financial reporting and auditing: A survey of the literature," Research in Accounting Regulation, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 145-163.
    3. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra E. Todd, 1997. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator: Evidence from Evaluating a Job Training Programme," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(4), pages 605-654.
    4. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Blouin, Jennifer L. & Larcker, David F., 2012. "The incentives for tax planning," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 391-411.
    5. Hainmueller, Jens, 2012. "Entropy Balancing for Causal Effects: A Multivariate Reweighting Method to Produce Balanced Samples in Observational Studies," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, January.
    6. Clive Lennox & Bing Li, 2020. "When Are Audit Firms Sued for Financial Reporting Failures and What Are the Lawsuit Outcomes?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(3), pages 1370-1399, September.
    7. Jeff P. Boone & Inder K. Khurana & K. K. Raman, 2011. "Litigation Risk and Abnormal Accruals," Working Papers 0020, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    8. Liu, Xiaoding, 2016. "Corruption culture and corporate misconduct," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(2), pages 307-327.
    9. Iacus, Stefano & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2009. "cem: Software for Coarsened Exact Matching," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 30(i09).
    10. DeFond, Mark L. & Lennox, Clive S., 2011. "The effect of SOX on small auditor exits and audit quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 21-40, June.
    11. Matthew Blackwell & Stefano Iacus & Gary King & Giuseppe Porro, 2009. "cem: Coarsened exact matching in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(4), pages 524-546, December.
    12. Mitchell A. Petersen, 2009. "Estimating Standard Errors in Finance Panel Data Sets: Comparing Approaches," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 435-480, January.
    13. Clive Lennox & Petro Lisowsky & Jeffrey Pittman, 2013. "Tax Aggressiveness and Accounting Fraud," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 739-778, September.
    14. Jeffrey Pittman & Yuping Zhao, 2020. "Debt Covenant Restriction, Financial Misreporting, and Auditor Monitoring," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(4), pages 2145-2185, December.
    15. Smith, Jared D., 2016. "US political corruption and firm financial policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 350-367.
    16. Dain C. Donelson, 2013. "The Potential for Catastrophic Auditor Litigation," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 15(1), pages 333-380.
    17. Chy, Mahfuz & De Franco, Gus & Su, Barbara, 2021. "The effect of auditor litigation risk on clients' access to bank debt: Evidence from a quasi-experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1).
    18. Lennox, Clive & Li, Bing, 2014. "Accounting misstatements following lawsuits against auditors," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 58-75.
    19. Justin Hopkins, 2018. "Do Securities Class Actions Deter Misreporting?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 35(4), pages 2030-2057, December.
    20. Qingbo Yuan & Yunyan Zhang, 2015. "Do Banks Price Litigation Risk in Debt Contracting? Evidence from Class Action Lawsuits," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(9-10), pages 1310-1340, November.
    21. Chung, Janne & Farrar, Jonathan & Puri, Poonam & Thorne, Linda, 2010. "Auditor liability to third parties after Sarbanes-Oxley: An international comparison of regulatory and legal reforms," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 66-78.
    22. Lennox, Clive & Wu, Xi & Zhang, Tianyu, 2016. "The effect of audit adjustments on earnings quality: Evidence from China," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 545-562.
    23. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    24. Kim, Irene & Skinner, Douglas J., 2012. "Measuring securities litigation risk," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 290-310.
    25. Hasan, Mostafa Monzur & Lobo, Gerald J. & Qiu, Buhui, 2021. "Organizational capital, corporate tax avoidance, and firm value," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chy, Mahfuz & De Franco, Gus & Su, Barbara, 2021. "The effect of auditor litigation risk on clients' access to bank debt: Evidence from a quasi-experiment," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1).
    2. Ahmed Al-Hadi & Grantley Taylor & Grant Richardson, 2022. "Are corruption and corporate tax avoidance in the United States related?," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 344-389, March.
    3. Guanming He & Helen Mengbing Ren & Richard Taffler, 2020. "The impact of corporate tax avoidance on analyst coverage and forecasts," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 447-477, February.
    4. Al-Hadi, Ahmed & Habib, Ahsan, 2023. "Consequences of state-level regulations in accounting, finance, and corporate governance: A review," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    5. Banerjee, Rajabrata & Gupta, Kartick & Krishnamurti, Chandrasekhar, 2022. "Does corrupt practice increase the implied cost of equity?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    6. Dang, Man & Puwanenthiren, Premkanth & Truong, Cameron & Henry, Darren & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2022. "Audit quality and seasoned equity offerings methods," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    7. Lisa Frey, 2018. "Tax certified individual auditors and effective tax rates," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 11(1), pages 77-114, February.
    8. Ege, Matthew S. & Stuber, Sarah B., 2022. "Are auditors rewarded for low audit quality? The case of auditor lenience in the insurance industry," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1).
    9. Li, Tianpei (Constance) & Walton, Stephanie, 2023. "Is there a dark side of competition? Product market competition and auditor-client contracting," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    10. Baban Eulaiwi & Ahmed Al‐Hadi & Lien Duong & Keira Clark & Grantley Taylor & Brian Perrin, 2022. "Audit pricing and corporate whistleblower governance: evidence from Australian financial firms," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2339-2384, June.
    11. Feng Guo & Chenxi Lin & Adi Masli & Michael S. Wilkins, 2021. "Auditor Responses to Shareholder Activism," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 63-95, March.
    12. Chen, Huimin (Amy) & Francis, Bill B. & Shen, Yinjie (Victor) & Wu, Qiang, 2024. "The impact of hedge fund activism on audit pricing," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2).
    13. Yi (Dale) Fu & Youngdeok Lim & Elizabeth Carson, 2024. "Accounting firm office size and tax aggressiveness," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 64(1), pages 1183-1219, March.
    14. Christensen, Brant & Schmardebeck, Roy & Seidel, Timothy, 2022. "Do auditors’ incentives affect materiality assessments of prior-period misstatements?," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    15. Feng Guo & Yijun Li & Likoebe M. Maruping & Adi Masli, 2023. "Complementarity Between Investment in Information Technology (IT) and IT Human Resources: Implications for Different Types of Firm Innovation," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 1259-1275, September.
    16. Hao, Jie & Pham, Viet Tuan, 2024. "Stuck in traffic: Do auditors price traffic congestion?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(2).
    17. Inder K. Khurana & Nathan G. Lundstrom & K. K. Raman, 2021. "PCAOB Inspections and the Differential Audit Quality Effect for Big 4 and Non–Big 4 US Auditors," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 376-411, March.
    18. Huang, Chia-Wei & Lin, Chih-Yen & Lin, Wen-Chun & Tsai, Yun-Ching, 2022. "Corruption transfer and acquisition performance," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    19. Unsal, Omer & Houston, Reza, 2024. "R&D grants and medical innovation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 128(C).
    20. Pan, Yue & Shroff, Nemit & Zhang, Pengdong, 2023. "The dark side of audit market competition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Auditor liability; Financial restatement; Litigation risk;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G30 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - General
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bracre:v:55:y:2023:i:2:s0890838922000130. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/the-british-accounting-review .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.