The change of auditor: The Portuguese case

Abstract

Problems regarding the change of auditor and the opinion issued by the auditor through the financial audit report have been shown to be an important issue.The objective of this study is to examine to what extent the change of auditor is related to the type of opinion that the auditor expressed in the audit report.In pursuit of this objective, an empirical study was carried out supported by a sample from a set of entities with securities admitted to trading on the Portuguese stock market in the period between 2006 and 2012 (seven years) and using logistic regression to test whether the reception of the qualified audit report indicated the change of auditor.The findings point to there being a significant positive relationship between the qualified audit report and a change of auditor, verifiable for qualified opinions on assets and others, but not to the qualified opinions on equity and liabilities.The largest number of qualified opinions occur in the years 2007, 2009 and 2011, most of which were related to equity and assets, and the change of auditor is more associated with qualified opinions on assets and other qualified opinions than the qualified opinions on equity and liabilities