An Analysis of Restatements on Financial Reporting

Download or read book An Analysis of Restatements on Financial Reporting written by James Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public confidence in financial statements may be at an all-time low. The bankruptcy of Enron, the largest bankruptcy in United States history, brings into question whether the accounting profession, and the auditing process in particular, protects the users of financial statements. The shower of scandals and earnings restatements makes users skeptical of the financial reporting rules that are supposed to protect the public. In addition, a lack of transparency in reporting followed by restated financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses exacerbate this problem. This paper considers the frequency and nature of Form 8-K reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by Fortune 500 companies during 2001. This form is used to report the occurrence of any material events or corporate changes which are of importance to investors or security holders and previously have not been reported by the registrant. Information from Form 8-K is analyzed to identify which companies filed 8-K reports, the types of disclosures that are included, industry characteristics of companies that file 8-K reports, whether financial statements were restated as a result of those filings, the reasons that restatements, if any, were required, and the relationship between size of company and number of restatements.