scholarly journals Audit Committee Competence and Earnings Management in Europe

2022 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-135
Author(s):  
César Zarza Herranz ◽  
Nuria Reguera Alvarado ◽  
Felix J. López Iturriaga

This study analyses the association between the competence of audit committee members and earnings management in a sample of 142 non-financial firms from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom over the 2006–2013 period. We measure members’ competence through their dedication and expertise. We find that outside directorships have a dual effect, such that a balanced level of dedication to the audit committee (roughly two outside directorships) reduces earnings management. We examine four types of expertise: audit, non-audit accounting, non-accounting financial, and supervisory expertise. We find a negative relation between earnings management and the audit experience of committee members, and that the other types of expertise play no relevant role. We also find that the contribution of audit experts to curbing earnings management proves particularly important in smaller and less active committees, as well as in smaller and busier boards. Este estudio analiza la asociación entre la competencia de los miembros del Comité de Auditoría y la gestión de los beneficios en una muestra de 142 empresas no financieras de Francia, Alemania, Italia, España y el Reino Unido durante el período 2006-2013. Se mide la competencia de los miembros a través de su dedicación y experiencia. Se descubre que el cargo de consejero externo tiene un efecto doble, de modo que un nivel equilibrado de dedicación al comité de auditoría (aproximadamente dos cargos de consejero externo) reduce la gestión de beneficios. Se examinan igualmente cuatro tipos de experiencia: de auditoría, contable no relacionada con la auditoría, financiera no contable y de supervision, encontrándose una relación negativa entre la gestión de beneficios y la experiencia en auditoría de los miembros del comité, y que los otros tipos de experiencia no desempeñan ningún papel relevante. También se descubre que la contribución de los expertos en auditoría para limitar la gestión de beneficios resulta especialmente importante en los comités más pequeños y menos activos, así como en los consejos más pequeños y más ocupados.

Author(s):  
Dolores Morondo Taramundi

This chapter analyses arguments regarding conflicts of rights in the field of antidiscrimination law, which is a troublesome and less studied area of the growing literature on conflicts of rights. Through discussion of Ladele and McFarlane v. The United Kingdom, a case before the European Court of Human Rights, the chapter examines how the construction of this kind of controversy in terms of ‘competing rights’ or ‘conflicts of rights’ seems to produce paradoxical results. Assessment of these apparent difficulties leads the discussion in two different directions. On the one hand, some troubles come to light regarding the use of the conflict of rights frame itself in the field of antidiscrimination law, particularly in relation to the main technique (‘balancing of rights’) to solve them. On the other hand, some serious consequences of the conflict of rights frame on the development of the antidiscrimination theory of the ECtHR are unearthed.


Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 47
Author(s):  
Sandrine Brachotte

This article studies religious arbitration from the perspective of global legal pluralism, which embraces both normative plurality and cultural diversity. In this context, the article considers that UK arbitration law regulates both commercial and religious arbitration while relying on a monist conception of arbitration. It further identifies two intertwined issues regarding cultural diversity, which find their source in this monist conception. Firstly, through the study of Jivraj v. Hashwani ([2011] UKSC 40), this article shows that the governance of religious arbitration may generate a conflict between arbitration law and equality law, the avoidance of which can require sacrificing the objectives of one or the other branch of law. The Jivraj case concerned an Ismaili arbitration clause, requiring that all arbitrators be Ismaili—a clause valid under arbitration law but potentially not under employment-equality law. To avoid such conflict, the Supreme Court reduced the scope of employment-equality law, thereby excluding self-employed persons. Secondly, based on cultural studies of law, this article shows that the conception of arbitration underlying UK arbitration law is ill-suited to make sense of Ismaili arbitration. In view of these two issues, this article argues that UK arbitration law acknowledges normative multiplicity but fails to embrace the cultural diversity entangled therewith.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Paul Miller

Racism in any society is fuelled by a number of factors, often acting independently of each other, or, at times, in concert with each other. On the one hand, anti-racism efforts rely on the alignment of four “system conditions” to stand a chance of successfully engaging and tackling racism. On the other hand, where these “system conditions” are not present, or where they are not in sync, this leads to “system failure”—a situation where racism is writ large in society and in the institutions therein, and where anti-racism efforts are severely hampered. Drawing on evidence from within the education sector and elsewhere in UK society, this paper examines how a lack of alignment between “system conditions” hampers antiracism efforts, and simultaneously reinforces racism in society and in institutions—leading to gridlock or “system failure” around anti-racism.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7781
Author(s):  
Mabliny Thuany ◽  
Sara Pereira ◽  
Lee Hill ◽  
Jean Carlos Santos ◽  
Thomas Rosemann ◽  
...  

Background: The environment can play a relevant role in performance in runners. This study aimed to verify the distribution of the best European road runners across the continent, and to investigate variables related to country representatives in the European Senior outdoor top list 2019. Methods: The sample comprised 563 European runners, aged 18–48 years, ranked in the European Senior outdoor top list 2019 for distances of 10–42 km. Country-related variables were gross domestic product (GDP), competition place, population size, and sports investment. The countries were categorized as “top ten countries” or “other countries”. Binary logistic regression was used for analysis. Results: The United Kingdom showed the highest prevalence of runners in the ranking (men—17.6%; women—23.0%), followed by Spain (male ranking—12.1%) and Germany (female ranking—8.6%). For men, sports investment (OR = 1.13; CI95% = 1.03–1.28) and country GDP (OR = 0.96; CI95% = 0.93–0.98) showed an association with the chances of the athlete to reach the Top 10 ranking, while among women, the only variable significantly related was the competition venue (OR = 3.97; CI95% = 1.40–11.23). Conclusion: As in other sports considered “non-expensive”, the economic and demographic characteristics of the place where athletes train can provide advantages in performance.


Author(s):  
Stewart J. Brown

In this chapter the author demonstrates that while the Oxford Movement was an English development, it also exercised a significant influence upon the other nations within the United Kingdom. In Ireland and Wales, where the established United Church of England and Ireland held the allegiance of only a minority of the population, small but influential groups of High Churchmen embraced Tractarian principles as a form of Church defence. In Scotland, Tractarian principles contributed to the modest revival of the small Scottish Episcopal Church, and also had unexpected consequences in promoting a Scoto-Catholic movement within the late nineteenth-century established Presbyterian Church of Scotland.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Riska Hendika Rani

Chris Cleave‟s novel entitled The Other Hand pictures an African refugee‟s life in the United Kingdom and her struggle to survive in the country. As an illegal refugee from Africa who smuggles herself into a tea ship, Little Bee, the refugee, has to stay in the immigration detention center when she arrives in the United Kingdom. She deals with identity issues during her two-year-stay in the immigration detention center. The questions such as „why don‟t British people treat her in a good way‟ and „why do British people get respect and she does not‟ make her want to be treated like a British, which she assumes, being treated nicely in the United Kingdom. Under the paradigm of social identity theory which contains the three stages of identity formation proposed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, this study attempts to explain Little Bee‟s process of identity formation. Focusing on Little Bee‟s struggle in the United Kingdom as an illegal refugee from Africa, this study analyzes the three stages of identity formation that Little Bee has been through during her social identity transformation, as well as the factors influencing her and her struggle during the process.


2010 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Goldberg

SUMMARYThis paper describes the process of preparing a Clinical Guideline for “NICE”, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the United Kingdom. The procedure involves the group appointed to prepare the guideline relating to the various “stakeholders” who have an interest on the one hand, and satisfying the fairly demanding standards set by NICE on the other. The strengths and limitations of the approach based on evidence based medicine are discussed.


1944 ◽  
Vol 4 (13) ◽  
pp. 698-712

William Whiteman Carlton Topley, the eldest of the three sons (the other children, two, died young) of William Henry and Mary Ann Morland Topley was born in Lewisham on 19 January 1886. Topley’s father, who died suddenly in 1916 from coronary disease, at the age of sixty-three was a man of wide intellectual interests and Topley’s uncle, William Topley (1841-1894) was elected into this Society in 1888. William Topley entered the Royal School of Mines in 1858 and was appointed an assistant geologist on the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom in 1862. According to the obituary notice ( Proc. Roy. Soc. 59, lxx (1896)) his early memoir ‘On the superficial deposits of the Medway, with remarks on the denudation of the Weald’, published in 1865, ‘did much towards settling a long debated point in geological speculation’.


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