Are the audit committee reports disclosing enough after the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act?

Purpose - The purpose of the current study is to examine audit committee reports of a sample of companies listed on the NYSE to determine the extent to which these reports contain voluntary disclosures that would indicate compliance with the relevant requirements of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX) and the rules imposed by the SEC and NYSE. Design/methodology/approach - Reviewed the contents of the audit committee reports from the 2004 proxy statements of a random sample of one hundred companies from those listed on the NYSE. These companies were drawn from a variety of industries and represented a wide cross‐section of the total market. The content of audit committee reports was examined to see if the committees voluntarily disclosed, within the body of the report, compliance with the requirements of SOX. Findings - The results reveal that there is a significant diversity in the form and content of the audit committee reports published in the sample. It appears that while some audit committees treat their report as more than just a regulatory requirement and provide more voluntary disclosure, many others continue to provide only the minimum required information in their report. Research limitations/implications - The study focused on the actual body of the audit committee reports to examine disclosures about the compliance with SOX. It is likely that in many cases, the disclosures that did not appear within the audit committee reports may appear elsewhere in the proxy statement. Also, the study only examined audit committee reports of a sample of NYSE companies. Future research might include audit committee reports of those companies in the NASDAQ system. Practical implications - Readers of audit committee reports might view more favorably the performance of those audit committees whose reports contain more extensive disclosures of the compliance with the SOX requirements. Originality/value - This paper fulfills a need to know if audit committees are meeting the requirement of SOX and disclosing it. It warns readers that in order to obtain complete information as to the functioning of audit committees, they might need to conduct a complete search of the proxy statements and not only the section relating to the audit committee report.