The Motivation,Consequences And Governance Of The Purchase Of Audit Opinions By Listed Companies

The development of China’s audit market started late and is not sound enough at present.On the one hand,some accounting firms have difficulties such as high business pressure,strong profit constraints,and weak voice;on the other hand,listed companies also generally have internal management problems,and the management authorities may use special means to lure or coerce accounting firms due to their own interests or other factors,greatly weakening the independence of auditing.When the company’s operating performance is poor,the management has an incentive to whitewash the financial statements,but the coverup of fraud requires the bribery of the auditor,which gives rise to the purchase of audit opinions.This paper mainly uses the method of literature analysis and case analysis to study the motivations,consequences and governance of audit opinion purchases.First,the relevant theories,institutional backgrounds and influencing factors of the purchase of audit opinions are elaborated.Secondly,taking the purchase of audit opinions by CITIC Guoan to Grant Thornton Certified Public Accountants as a research case,using the audit model to estimate the audit costs of CITIC Guoan from 2009 to 2015,and then comparing the actual audit fees with the theoretical audit fees,in order to enhance the persuasiveness,this paper further selects enterprises of the same business type with the accounting firm as a comparison to draw the conclusion that the audit fees of CITIC Guoan are abnormal,and then further combines the analysis of the audit tenure,abnormal financial data and fraudulent means.Audited and approved CITIC Guoan’s audited purchases.Finally,the motives for the behavior are found in light of the operational difficulties faced by CITIC Guoan and the incentive methods of senior executives,and the consequences of the purchase of audit opinions are analyzed in combination with the penalty report issued by the CSRC,the recent stock price fluctuations and the litigation and arbitration cases disclosed by the company.According to this paper,the purchase of audit opinions is closely related to the deterioration of business conditions and financial fraud,and enterprises often purchase audit opinions because they do not want financial fraud to be discovered.Due to the concealment of the purchase behavior of the audit opinion,there is a certain risk in the identification of the behavior,which can be inferred from the audit fee,the audit term,and abnormal financial data.The governance of the purchase of audit opinions can be carried out by strengthening the internal control and corporate governance of the enterprise,encouraging the firm to develop big data auditing,business differentiation,business rotation,and improving the quality of personnel,but the key is to rely on the regulatory authorities to increase penalties,expand the scope of inspection,and improve relevant laws and regulations.