The Impact of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Restatement of Financial Statements: An Empirical Study of the Listed Companies in Egypt

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of corporate governance mechanisms with particular reference to (board of director, audit committee and ownership structure) on restatements of financial statements in the Egyptian environment. In particular, these mechanisms are board independence, duality role, audit committee independence, audit committee size, audit committee meetings, managerial ownership, institutional ownership, profitability, leverage and firm size. The sample consists of 678 firm-year observations of listed non-financial Egyptian firms, including 125 observations of firms restated their financial statements over the period 2014-2019, the empirical results of logistic regression model provide evidence that there is a negative association between board independence, audit committee independence, managerial ownership and financial restatements. The results also emphasize that CEO duality, size of audit committee, financial leverage and firm profitability are positively related to financial restatements. However, audit committee meetings, institutional ownership and size of firm are not associated with the incidence of financial restatements.