Determinants of Audit Opinion after the Scandals of Enron: Empirical Validation in the French Context

Abstract

This study examines the effect of regulatory changes on audit quality in the French context. The evaluation of the risks and the anomalies carried out by the auditors brings them control relating to the financial statements of the company in order to express an opinion on the effectiveness, the regularity, the sincerity and the faithful image of these documents, in a large complexity of the organizations the objective of this research consists in studying the effect of the evolutions of the regulation as regards legal audit on the estimate of the probability of having an opinion of audit with reserve which reinforces the independence of the auditor.A list of hypothesis related to the approached problems is proposed followed by an overview of the different theoretical propositions which are in place. From a sample of French companies in the SBF 250 over the period 2002-2011, the results show that the analysis of the conditions of receiving a qualified audit opinion is determined by: the variables of the financial health of the company, the inventory receivables which indicate the complexity of the audited firm and the characteristics of the audit.