Low Litigation Risk Research Articles

Nonlinear effect of CEO tenure on stock price crash risk

This study investigates the nonlinear relationship between CEO tenure and stock price crash risk. Using data from publicly listed U.S. firms over the period from 2000 – 2022, we report an inverted U-shaped association between CEO tenure and stock price crash risk. Specifically, managers in their early tenure appear to hoard bad news up to a threshold. After this threshold, managers appear to engage in less bad news-hoarding behavior. The threshold value of CEO tenure is attenuated by director stock ownership and lower litigation risk. The results underscore the need for monitoring early career CEOs given the nonlinear association.

Fair value accounting standards and securities litigation

We examine the effect of fair value standards on firms' litigation risk. The discretion required by fair value allows plaintiffs to “second guess” managers' judgments, potentially increasing litigation risk. Alternatively, the complexity of fair value may decrease litigation risk if it's more difficult to demonstrate scienter. Our evidence suggests firms that rely more on fair value standards are relatively less likely to be sued. We find no evidence of a relation between fair value and the risk of misstatements or fraud, but do find evidence of a slight increase in firms' litigation risk via an increase in volatility. However, the primary effect of fair value standards in reducing litigation risk dominates the volatility effect. Finally, we find average litigation rates increase after the passage of new standards, but less so for fair value standards. On balance, our evidence suggests fair value is a relatively low litigation risk area in GAAP.

The International Standards on Auditing and the Accuracy of Auditors’ Going Concern Disclosures: Evidence for Private Firms in a Low Litigious Environment

ABSTRACT This paper examines the effect of adopting the International Standard on Auditing (ISA) 570 on going concern (GC) disclosures in the audit report in a European environment characterized by low litigation and reputation risk. We exploit a natural experiment in Belgium, where the global GC standard ISA 570 replaced the local GC standard. We examine whether this shift in standards changed the accuracy of auditors’ GC disclosures. Using a sample of 30,339 stressed private companies with audited financial statements for periods ending on or after 15 December 2012 till 14 December 2016, our findings suggest that the adoption of the ISA 570 improves the accuracy of auditors’ GC disclosures. Specifically, we find that the implementation of the ISA 570 is associated with an 8 percent decrease in false positive misclassifications (GC opinion without subsequent bankruptcy), while the rate of false negative misclassifications (bankruptcy without prior GC opinion) remains unchanged.

Risk disclosures in annual reports and firms’ default risk

AbstractThis study examines how the length, content, and tone attributes of risk disclosures in a firm's 10‐K annual report relate to its default risk in the subsequent fiscal year. We find a significant association between specific attributes of risk disclosures and the default risk in the subsequent period. Using the 2008 financial crisis as a shock to firms’ risk environment, we further find that the documented association is more pronounced in the post‐financial crisis era. Our cross‐sectional analyses reveal that the documented relationship is particularly prominent for firms undergoing substantial shifts in default risk, facing significant financial distress, operating in industries with lower litigation risk, or subject to heightened scrutiny from external monitors. Overall, our findings suggest that risk disclosures in firms’ annual reports offer valuable insights for investors assessing financial distress and default risk.

Shareholder litigation rights and firm productivity

AbstractThis paper analyzes the impacts of decreased shareholder litigation risk on firm productivity. Shareholder litigation provides shareholders a mechanism to enforce rights and mitigate agency conflicts. We use a staggered state‐level adoption of universal demand (UD) laws as an exogenous shock that suppressed the number of shareholder derivative lawsuits. We show that the resulting deterioration in corporate governance, coupled with increased managerial attention, had mixed effects on productivity. Adverse effects resulting from lower litigation risk are primarily observed in firms facing low takeover threats. Conversely, firms with incentivised management achieved a higher productivity growth.

Does employee whistleblowing inhibit corporate pollutant emission

This paper examines whether and how internal whistleblowing enhances corporate pollution control. We find that setting up an internal whistleblowing system help to reduce the firms' SO2 emission intensity. Our findings are robust after implementing a series of endogeneity test. Further, we show that the impacts of internal whistleblowing on corporate pollution emission are more pronounced in firms facing stronger environmental monitoring, firms contribute more to the local economy, state-owned enterprises, firms with lower litigation risk, and firm with more information disclosed. Finally, we find that internal whistleblowing helps to promote the effectiveness of internal control and improve the corporate social responsibility to inhibit enterprise pollution. This paper is the first to explore how employee monitoring reduce firm pollutant emission, contributing to the growing literature on firm environmental behavior.

Economic effects of litigation risk on corporate disclosure and innovation

AbstractEmpirical studies on the relationship between shareholder litigation and corporate disclosure obtain mixed results. We develop an economic model to capture the endogeneity between disclosure and litigation. Equilibrium disclosure is determined by two countervailing effects of litigation, a deterrence effect and an insurance effect. We derive four key results. (i) Decreasing litigation risk leads to less disclosure of very bad news, due to a weakening of the deterrence effect, but to more disclosure of weakly bad news, due to a weakening of the insurance effect. (ii) Given a sufficiently large information asymmetry, litigation risk dampens (boosts) overall disclosure of bad news for low (high) litigation risk firms. (iii) Capital markets respond more to the disclosure of bad news than of good news if the deterrence effect is strong, which arises if both insiders’ penalties and litigation risk are high. (iv) In an extension, we highlight real effects of litigation on corporate innovation and establish that innovation first decreases and then increases (strictly decreases) with litigation risk if insiders’ penalties are small (large). We reconcile our findings with results from a large set of U.S.-based empirical studies and make several novel predictions.

Cross-listing dynamics and labor investment efficiency: International evidence

This paper investigates the dynamics of cross-listing in the United States and labor investment efficiency. Using a sample of 11,780 firm-year observations from 44 countries over the period 2000–2019, we found that cross-listing is positively associated with labor investment efficiency. This result suggests that cross-listing is associated with lower deviations in labor investment at the level explained by economic fundamentals. We also found that cross-listing reduces both overinvestment and underinvestment problems. The positive impact of cross-listing on labor investment efficiency is more prevalent for firms from countries with weaker institutions and higher liabilities due to foreignness and for those operating in industries with low litigation risk. Further evidence shows that labor investment efficiency following cross-listing in the United States translates into high firm valuation. Our findings are robust to endogeneity concerns and have important policy implications.

Climate change performance and financial distress

AbstractGiven the crucial role that environmental accounting plays in sustainable development, this study investigates the relationship between climate change disclosure performance (CCDP) and financial distress as well as the moderating impact of litigation, the existence of a risk committee, the employment of Big4 auditing firms and the level of audit fees. Utilising a sample of the top 300 Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)‐listed non‐financial firms over the period 2008–2019 and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis with fixed effects, it is found that higher levels of CCDP are related to lower levels of financial distress. Additionally, the significant association between CCDP and financial distress is manifested in firms with low litigation risk, firms with a risk committee, firms that employ Big4 auditing firms and firms that incur a higher level of audit fees. Additional tests that mitigate self‐selection and endogeneity, such as propensity score matching (PSM) and the system generalised method of moments (GMM), show that our findings are robust. Finally, our findings shed light on managers' strategic behaviour in relation to the consideration of, and transparency around, climate change risks.

Do going concern disclosures in the management report and audit report signal bankruptcy risk? Evidence from privately held firms

This article provides evidence of the relations between disclosures in the management report of conditions that could challenge the continuance of operations, auditors' going concern reporting and the likelihood of bankruptcy for privately held firms in an environment characterized by low litigation risk. We conduct a matched case–control study using data for 125 firms filing for liquidation bankruptcy and 125 non‐bankrupt firms. The results show that disclosures in the management report and auditors' going concern modifications are positively associated with the likelihood of bankruptcy and that their predictive ability is incremental to the control factors. Despite the lower litigation pressure facing private Swedish firms, the informational value of going concern disclosures is comparable with those in litigious environments.

Is There a Dark Side to Societal Trust in Auditors' Going Concern Assessments?

SUMMARYAmidst heightened concern among U.S. and international regulators is the need to examine reasons why auditors are not issuing going-concern opinions (GCOs) to financially distressed clients who seem to warrant such opinions. We examine societal trust as one such reason, finding a lower incidence of GCOs with high societal trust. Moreover, we find that high societal trust is associated with fewer GCO Type I misclassifications, but more GCO Type II misclassifications. In addition, the association between societal trust and GCOs does not disappear for severely distressed clients, suggesting that auditors do not adequately perceive clients that warrant GCOs when the clients are in high trust countries, and illuminating a dark side to societal trust. Moreover, low litigation risk and auditor-management relationship longevity exacerbate this dark side of societal trust. Our study highlights how societal trust can have beneficial effects across multiple economic contexts while posing problems in the auditing context.Data Availability: All data used in the study are available from the sources cited in the text.JEL Classifications: D91; M41; M42.

Do Firms Redact Information from Material Contracts to Conceal Bad News?

ABSTRACT The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows firms to redact information from material contracts by submitting confidential treatment requests if redacted information is not material and would cause competitive harm upon public disclosure. This study examines whether managers use confidential treatment requests to conceal bad news. We show that confidential treatment requests are positively associated with residual short interest, a proxy for managers' private negative information. This positive association is more pronounced for firms with lower litigation risk, higher executive equity incentives, and lower external monitoring. Confidential treatment requests filed by firms with higher residual short interests are associated with higher stock price crash risk and poorer future performance. Collectively, our results suggest that managers redact information from material contracts to conceal bad news. Data Availability: Data used in this study are available from public sources identified in the study.

Culture and annual report readability

PurposeThis study aims to examine the effect of state culture on the readability of narrative disclosures in annual reports based on firms located in all 50 states of the USA.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses the cultural tightness and looseness (Harrington and Gelfand 2014) index at the state level and the BOG index (Bonsall and Miller, 2017) as the primary measures of annual report readability.FindingsUsing US data from 1994 to 2019, this study finds that the state level of cultural tightness in which firms are located positively affects firms’ annual report readability. In addition, the study finds that the positive effect of cultural tightness on annual report readability is pronounced in subgroups with high litigation risk while the result does not hold with subgroups that have low litigation risk. The results are robust when alternative proxies for annual report readability are used and historical location and the states in which firms are incorporated are considered.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the growing literature on the determinants of readability in annual report because firms’ narrative disclosure in annual report varies depending on the information environment, litigation risk, embedded in each state culture where firms are located.

Institutional Dual-Holders and Corporate Disclosures: A Natural Experiment

This study examines the influence of institutional dual-holders, whose portfolios hold both loans and equity securities of the same firms, on those firms’ disclosures. Using mergers between institutional shareholders and lenders to the same firms as exogenous shocks to identify firms with institutional dual-holders, we document that such firms are less likely to provide management forecasts and disclose fewer voluntary 8-K items. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the reduction in public disclosures is more pronounced when institutional dual-holders have higher ownership and thus greater ability to influence firms’ disclosures and when firms have lower litigation risk. In addition, we find that firms with institutional dual-holders provide more private disclosures to their dual-holders via loan contract covenants. Additional analyses indicate that the influence of institutional dual-holders on corporate disclosures is driven by both their trading and monitoring incentives.

Risk Mitigation of Corporate Social Performance in US Class Action Lawsuits

We investigated the relationship between corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and litigation risk by examining US class action lawsuits. We found that a 1 standard deviation improvement in the ESG controversies of an average company in the sample reduced litigation risk from 3.1% to 2.4%. Moreover, an average company with low ESG performance exhibited a loss in market value twice as large as that of a company with high ESG performance—an abnormal loss of US$1.14 billion. Implementation of our findings with a trading strategy yielded positive monthly alphas, suggesting that investors benefit from lower litigation risk and the insurance-like protection of high ESG performance.

Shareholder Litigation Rights and Firm Productivity

This paper analyzes the impacts of decreased shareholder litigation risk on firm productivity. Shareholder litigation provides shareholders a mechanism to enforce rights and mitigate agency conflicts. We use a staggered state-level adoption of universal demand (UD) laws as an exogenous shock that suppressed the number of shareholder derivative lawsuits. We show that the resulting deterioration in corporate governance, coupled with increased managerial attention, had mixed effects on productivity. Adverse effects resulting from lower litigation risk are primarily observed in firms facing financial constraints and low takeover threats. Conversely, firms with incentivized management achieved a higher productivity growth.

Affiliation of local audit firms with Big4 auditors and capital structure: evidence from Indonesia

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate whether the choice for a Big4-affiliated local audit firm affects the capital structure of listed companies in Indonesia, a fast-growing emerging country that is characterized by high information asymmetry and low litigation risk. A unique characteristic of the Indonesian audit environment is that Big4 auditors can only enter the market indirectly through affiliation with a local audit firm.Design/methodology/approachA sample of Indonesian listed companies between 2008 and 2015 is used to investigate this relation using ordinary least squares (OLS). To address the concern that the choice for Big4-affiliated auditors might reflect client characteristics, the authors also perform OLS on a matched sample, using both propensity-score and entropy-balance matching.FindingsAcross all three samples, the authors document that companies audited by a Big4-affiliated local audit firm display lower debt ratios. The authors find no such effect for affiliation with second-tier audit firms. Surprisingly, they find that the negative effect of Big4 affiliation is increasing in client size.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides evidence of the consequences of hiring Big4 auditors on the perceived information asymmetry by financial markets under extreme conditions: in an environment characterized by low litigation risk and where Big4 auditors can operate only indirectly through affiliation.Practical implicationsThe results of this study are of interest to policymakers, managers and financial stakeholders in emerging countries where external financing is important yet difficult to obtain because of severe information asymmetry. Hiring a Big4 auditor, even only through affiliation, might reduce perceived information asymmetry and increase the access to external equity financing.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide evidence of the effect of Big4 auditors on their clients’ capital structure when they can operate only indirectly through affiliation with a local auditor.

Auditor Going Concern Opinions and Bank Systemic Risk: Evidence from the 2007–2009 Financial Crisis

SUMMARYFollowing the 2007–2009 financial crisis, regulators and investor groups alleged that auditors were reluctant to issue going concern opinions (GCOs) to distressed banks during the crisis, raising questions about the quality of auditors' GCO decisions. This paper investigates whether systemic risk influences auditors' GCO decisions during the crisis due to potential adverse spillover effects. Using 496 bank-year observations, we find that auditors are less likely to issue a GCO to systemically risky banks, and this auditor behavior reduces Type I errors without increasing Type II errors. The effects are more pronounced during the crisis period, especially for banks that are large and connected, have lower litigation risk, or are audited by Big 4 auditors or industry specialists. Overall, our findings suggest that during the crisis period, auditors were less likely to over-issue GCOs to systemically risky banks, resulting in more accurate GCOs.JEL Classifications: M42; G20.

Readability of 10‐K Reports and Stock Price Crash Risk

ABSTRACTThis study shows that less readable 10‐K reports are associated with higher stock price crash risk. The results are consistent with the argument that managers can successfully hide adverse information by writing complex financial reports, which leads to stock price crashes when the hidden bad news accumulates and reaches a tipping point. Cross‐sectional analyses show that the effect of financial reporting complexity on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with persistent negative earnings news or transitory positive earnings news, greater chief executive officer stock option incentives, or lower litigation risk. Finally, accrual manipulation appears to be positively related to crash risk, even since the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act, if the manipulation is accompanied by complex 10‐K reports.

Adoption and use of technology with low litigation risk – the case of financial reporting on Twitter by ASX companies

ABSTRACTCorporate adoption of technology faces challenges such as resource constraints and litigation risk. To investigate if low litigation risk encourages technology adoption and its use, this paper investigates corporate financial reporting on Twitter, a voluntary corporate disclosure practice without obvious litigation risk in Australia. This study reviews 4,540 financial reporting related tweets from 222 ASX listed companies’ Twitter accounts. An examination of tweet sentiment reveals a positive reporting bias, as listed companies are more willing to disclose positive financial reporting information on Twitter. A comparison of corporate financial reporting tweets prior to and after 2013 reveals that use of Twitter for opportunistic voluntary disclosure is gaining popularity, a trend that warrants close attention by regulators in order to protect investors from selective disclosure with reporting bias.