Audit Committee And Timeliness Of Financial Reports: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria

Abstract

Financial information needs to be available to users as rapidly as possible to make corporate financial statementinformation relevant for decision making process. Timely reporting on financial statements is necessary forhealthy financial markets. This paper examines the effect of audit committee and timelines of financial reportsfor thirty five firms quoted in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) for the period 2007-2011. The data for thisstudy were collected from the annual reports and accounts. The collected data were analysed using relevantdiagnostic tests, pooled least square and granger causality test. The result suggests that audit committeeindependence (ACI) is significantly related to the timeliness of financial reports; Audit committee meeting(ACM) is not significantly related to timeliness of financial reports; Audit committee expertise (ACE) issignificantly related to the timeliness of financial reports and Audit committee size (ACS) is not significantlyrelated to the timeliness of financial reports. On the basis of the empirical result, the paper made conclusions andrecommendations for effective and efficient audit committee characteristics to meet the 21st century complexcorporate environment.Keyword: Audit committee, financial report, timelines