Proceedings

took into account the essential role of audit committee manifested by the virtue of its
privileged access to the accounting and financial information and of its central place
in the companies’ control and supervising process.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
From an operational viewpoint, I was interested in choosing an adequate research
method which could have helped me in tracing potential solutions aiming to improve
financial information credibility, by the means of audit committees. Because of the
fact that this paper does not represent an empirical study, but a fundamental research
item, I proceeded to a history of literature addressing the subject of audit committees
and of financial information quality in order to draw conclusions highlighting the
research results. Especially the results of this study could participate at the
identification of future research perspectives. First of all, I identified the theme chosen
in the specialized literature. As a consequence, I used as research methodology, the
inductive research which supports the main idea concerning the generalization of
conclusions as a result of the literature analysis. The summary of scientific documents
was realized by having consulted specialized magazines, other sources of
documentation and also an important number of items and research studies. On the
basis of this synthesis, I proved the capacity of the audit committee to increase the
integrity of internal and external audit functions and, in the same time, I analyzed the
relations between the audit committee and its attributes concerning the quality of
financial information. At the end of this study, I proceeded to draw some conclusions
in order to highlight the contribution of the present paper to a better understanding of
the audit committee’s role according to its own limits.
1. AUDIT COMMITTEE – AN INCREASING VECTOR OF FINANCIAL
INFORMATION QUALITY
Recent financial scandals have disrupted both the concept and techniques for
measuring the audit quality. These scandals have led international professionals and
also the academic environment to redefine regulations and assessing mechanisms
concerning audit quality. Therefore, in the middle of professionals’ preoccupations,
there is audit committee, because it is considered that its characteristics do influence
the quality of financial statements. The scandals dating from the early 2000s sowed
doubts connected to the effectiveness of those committees. Famous cases with strong
impact on the credibility of financial information transmitted to investors, in addition
to Enron case, are also those of dot-com series and Credit Lyonnais (2001), Toshihide
Iguchi and Daiwa Bank (1995), Hollinger International Inc. (2004), Flaming Ferraris
(1999), Parmalat (2003), World Com (2001). Among the main causes of financial
scandals there are the information asymmetry and the opportunistic behavior of the
agents. Studying the causes and effects of these failures in question, specialists arrived
to propose possible solutions to agency problems, including audit monitoring and
performances measurement. As regards monitoring activity, the problems which are
held to be taken into account, concern internal and external bodies involved and their
independence (especially for financial audit). For the measurement of performances,
the latter depends on information entered and on instruments used.
As a result of financial scandals, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act arises in the U.S.A (2002,
SOX). Its purpose consists in establishing improved standards for all American public
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