In this paper we investigate the relation between audit committee quality, auditor
independence, and the disclosure of internal control weaknesses after the enactment
of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. We begin with a sample of firms with internal control weaknesses
and, based on industry, size, and performance, match these firms to a sample of
control firms without internal control weaknesses. Our conditional logit analyses indicate
that a relation exists between audit committee quality, auditor independence,
and internal control weaknesses. Firms are more likely to be identified with an internal
control weakness, if their audit committees have less financial expertise or, more specifically,
have less accounting financial expertise and non-accounting financial expertise.
They are also more likely to be identified with an internal control weakness, if their
auditors are more independent. In addition, firms with recent auditor changes are more
likely to have internal control weaknesses. defers the announcement of a replacement auditor than when it selects a Big 4 auditor to replace Andersen.