Suchergebnisse

1. Considerações gerais1.1. Conceito de empresa públicaA doutrina brasileira, até há bem pouco tempo, conceituava a empresa pública com a preocupação única e exclusiva de lhe caracterizar o regime jurídico de Direito Privado, que lhe é conatural e saliente.Entretanto, ultimamente, já se começa a sublinhar a incidência de normas de Direito Administrativo sobre elas.Caio Tácito refere-se às empresas públicas em sentido lato,".como pessoas jurídicas de Direito Privado, regidas a um tempo pelo Direito Comercial, e pelo Direito Administrativo, criadas nos moldes da lei comercial comum, sob a forma de sociedade por ações, iniciando-se sua existência com o arquivamento dos atos constitutivos no registro do comércio, dependendo sua instituição de prévia autorização legislativa, porque envolve aplicação de uma determinada incumbência do Estado" (cf. As empresas públicas no Brasil,RDA86/433).J. Cretella Jr. definiu-a da seguinte maneira:"Empresa pública é o instituto jurídico estatal de Direito Privado mediante o qual o Poder Público desempenha (a) quer atividades econômicas, industriais ou comerciais, competindo com o particular, (b) quer atividades administrativas, descentralizando os serviços típicos, antes confiados a entidades públicas ou privadas, de outra índole (concessionárias, permissionárias ou entidades autárquicas)" (cf.Administração Indireta Brasileira, p. 287-288).Portanto, no conceito de empresa pública há que se distinguir sua natureza jurídica pelo objeto social que lhe foi imposto pela lei. Afirmamos mesmo que há dois tipos de empresa pública, conforme atue no campo econômico ou no dos serviços públicos (vide:Mukai,Direito Administrativo e Empresas do Estado, Forense, 1984).Cotrim Neto sublinhou bem esse aspecto, na linha de Zanobini:"Para nós – aliás, esse é também o pensamento de Zanobini – o fim, o escopo, da pessoa jurídica há de ser o elemento principal (embora não exclusivo) para a conceituação de sua natureza jurídica: se ela tem a fisionomia de entidade estatal, usa processos de Direito Público, ...

Developed for corporate financial reporting managers and independent auditors, this book will help them stay abreast of changes and modifications to the requirements for public companies, their management, and auditors. Included are: -The latest pronouncements, regulations, and guidance issued by the SEC and PCAOB as they apply to the filings and audits of this reporting cycle. -What these organizations are planning and/or saying about the future. -Key developments which may affect your company or auditing firm. In addition, emerging issues, trends, and new resources are provided so that accountants and financial managers can stay out front

AbstractPrior research has shown that companies' diversity efforts lead to improved company performance and market value. However, measuring and comparing diversity is a challenge for firms since there is not a comprehensive, universally accepted method to measure firm diversity. This study evaluates three publicly available proxy measures (the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index (CEI) ratings and Bloomberg's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores, and a Board of Directors gender diversity index) that report on various aspects of firm diversity to assess which are most closely associated with long‐term company value using panel regression. We find that higher CEI ratings and Bloomberg's ESG scores are significantly associated with higher Tobin's q levels. A Granger causality analysis found evidence that diversity efforts at firms lead to higher future market performance, not that firms with better market performance are more likely to increase their diversity.

In the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals, Congress created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ("PCAOB") under the aegis of the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), with President Bush's support. Its purpose was to replace deficient accounting industry self-regulation with effective external regulation. The choices it made in doing so engendered passionate arguments about constitutionally necessary presidential authority and separation of powers. These divided the D.C. Circuit 2-1 and will be rehearsed before the Supreme Court in the coming weeks. President Bush's administration defended those choices; Judge Rogers, writing for the majority, found no valid constitutional objection to them (albeit not without some difficulty). On the other side, petitioners the Free Enterprise Fund and Judge Kavanaugh in dissent marshaled strong arguments that, if accepted in their entirety, would put the constitutionality of a wide range of government institutions in shadow. Starting with the constitutional text, and seeming almost to regard the cases as a nuisance to an intermediate court judge, Judge Kavanaugh's opinion is an open invitation to the originalists on the Court. The grant of certiorari, after extensive filings venturing far more deeply into the merits of the case than, in the writer's experience, is generally supposed to happen, suggests that the newly reconstituted Court could well prove sympathetic.

The paper takes both an historical and an international perspective on the issue of mutuality and identifies a number of important themes in the current debate on mutuality versus "plc" conversion. The paper accordingly argues that in the short term the problem of excess capacity and the need to reduce capital is an important motive behind the recent spate of conversions. In the long term, however, the greater flexibility and the opportunities to raise additional capital which are associated with public company status are an important impetus behind this debate. In this respect, a number of alternatives to outright conversion which have not been sufficiently debated in the literature are identified and examined. Emphasis is placed on the European and US experience where savings and loans institutions have introduced a number of alternatives to outright flotation. In particular, the various merits and de‐merits of mutual holding companies are examined as an alternative to outright conversion.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the transition from self-regulation to heteronomy has changed the gap in audit quality between Big Four and non-Big Four auditors.


Design/methodology/approach
This study analyzes publicly held companies in the USA between 1999 and 2012 using univariate analysis, multivariate analysis and quantile regression analysis. Audit quality is measured with discretionary accruals.


Findings
This study shows an insignificant difference in audit quality between the clients of Big Four and non-Big Four auditors after Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (hereafter, PCAOB) began its operations. In the analysis of the effects of PCAOB inspections on the audit quality of audit firms that are inspected annually and triennially, the findings show that the inspections have more positive effects when carried out annually. This suggests that the frequency of inspection is positively associated with audit quality. Overall, these results provide evidence that recent improvements in audit quality have been caused by changes in regulatory standards.


Originality/value
The paper provides three major original contributions. First, the authors add to the literature on audit quality by further demonstrating a reduced gap in audit quality between Big Four and non-Big Four audit firms due to heteronomy. Secondly, this study contributes to the debate as to whether independent inspections on audit firms are beneficial or not and suggests that the PCAOB inspections help increase audit quality. Finally, the results of this work contribute to the growing literature examining discretionary accruals.