Joint audit and financial scandal: The case of the French context

Abstract

The European Commission issued a proposal that encouraged the practice of joint audit on a voluntary basis. It recommended that mandatory audit firm rotation is extended from six years to nine years if joint audits are performed. This is considered as a new mechanism that increases audit quality and auditor independence. This new orientation of the EC Green Paper has an important impact on investor perception during the financial scandal announcement. In order to answer this question, we investigate the stock market reaction of SBF 250 after the disclosure of the financial scandal in presence of joint audit. Our sample is composed of 140 French listed enterprises. We use event study method and OLS regression. The empirical results demonstrate that the stock market of Non Big-Four clients does not significantly react compared to the firms audited by at least one Big Four in France. Contrary to this finding, the stock market reaction of the firms audited by two Big Four was significantly reacted compared to the enterprises audited by one Big at least in France. Those results demonstrate that joint audit with at least one Non-Big encouraged and especially in the Financial scandal periods and resolve the problem associated with the audit market concentration. (c) 2018 The Authors. Published by IASE.