Accounting restatements and key audit matters disclosure

This monograph is one of the few books to investigate the understudied but fascinating topic of accounting restatement in the European context. In the first chapter, substantial changes over time in treatments for correction of errors under the International Financial Reporting Standards and Italian generally accepted accounting principles are examined. Following that, a brief overview of the literature, mainly concerning the United States environment, and characteristics of and trends in accounting issues drawn from restatements announced by a sample of firms listed in European countries from 2016 to 2020 are presented. After a review of multi-country empirical research, chapter 3 presents an assessment of the frequency and severity of restatements at the country, industry and year levels. Finally, chapter 4 considers the forewarning effect of topics communicated in the key audit matters in relation to subsequently revealed account-specific misstatements by proposing a new matching procedure. Throughout the work, the author provides frequent comparisons with findings obtained by United States scholars.