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Bringing Darkness To Light: The Influence Of Auditor Quality And Audit Committee Expertise On The Timeliness Of Financial Statement Restatement Disclosures, Jaime Schmidt, Michael Wilkins

Michael S Wilkins

This study investigates whether auditor quality and audit committee expertise are associated with improved financial reporting timeliness as measured by the duration of a financial statement restatement’s ‘‘dark period.’’ The restatement dark period represents the length of time between a company’s discovery that it will need to restate financial data and the subsequent disclosure of the restatement’s effect on earnings. For a sample of dark restatements disclosed between 2004 and 2009, we find that companies that engage Big 4 auditors have shorter dark periods than companies that do not engage Big 4 auditors. We also find that companies with more …