This research examines whether the formation of audit committees and its characteristics are
associated with improved financial reporting quality. The sample of the study is the Nigerian
listed companies prior to and after the introduction of mandatory audit committee requirements
in The Code of Corporate Governance in 2003. The researcher uses an archival data from the
annual reports, NSE and SBAInteractive. The model by Dechew and Dichev (2002) was used to
measure the earnings quality as proxy for financial reporting quality. The result indicates that
there was some evidence that earnings quality significantly reduced in the years after audit
committee formation, thus providing some support for the notion that the formation of the audit
committee improved financial reporting quality. Second finding shows that there was a weak
association between the characteristics of audit committee and improved financial reporting
quality. The audit committee independence and expertise are found to significantly associate
with improved financial reporting quality. Audit committee meets 4 to 5 times a year and audit
committee size consists of 4 members. The result also shows that 70% of the sample firms
employed Non-Big 4 auditors. These findings provide evidence on the mandatory audit
committee requirement under the NSE listing rules on how the companies respond towards The
Code.