Our results suggest that, for firms in financial distress, completely independent audit committees
are associated with the highest level of audit committee effectiveness. Specifically, we find that wholly
independent audit committees are (1) significantly positively associated with the likelihood that an
audit firm issues a going-concern opinion to a financially distressed client and (2) negatively associated
with the likelihood of auditor dismissal following the issuance of a going-concern opinion. While
we do find some limited evidence that having one non-independent audit committee member provides
some protection from auditor dismissal following the issuance of a going-concern opinion,
our results suggest that the monitoring benefits of audit committee independence are not consistently
realized unless the audit committee is completely independent. These findings provide support for the
SOX requirement of 100% independent audit committees and for those opposed to easing the SOX
requirements for smaller and foreign companies.