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The requirement that public officials declare their income and assets can help deter the use of public office for private gain. Income and asset disclosure (IAD) systems can provide a means to detect and manage potential conflicts of interest, and can assist in the prevention, detection, and prosecution of illicit enrichment by public officials. Growing attention to anticorruption policies, institutions, and practices has led to increased interest in financial disclosure systems and the role they can play in supporting national anticorruption strategies and in helping to instill an expectation of ethical conduct for individuals in public office. IAD systems are also a key element in the implementation and enforcement of provisions of the United Nations Convention against Corruption and other international anticorruption agreements. This attention has sparked interest among policy makers and practitioners in the design features and implementation practices that make for effective financial disclosure administration. The case studies collected in this volume are intended to profile a range of systems and practices to help respond to this growing interest.

PurposeThis paper aims to enrich our understanding of whether mandatory IR adoption lures firm into misreporting or forces them to reduce it.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis is carried out based on the sample containing all publicly listed firms in South Africa. Many different rigorous econometric techniques are adopted to thoroughly evaluate whether corporate misreporting practices increase or decrease following the mandatory adoption of IR.FindingsThe empirical results reveal that mandatory IR disclosure results in a decline in the misreporting practices of firms. The authors further find that as firms increasingly comply with the IR guidelines, especially with the “Content Elements” and “Guiding Principles,” their misreporting levels decrease.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has implications for a wide range of stakeholders, especially for regulatory authorities, international policymakers and regulators, as well as users of integrated reports of listed firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).Practical implicationsRegulatory authorities should be aware of misreporting determinants to set adequate and fitting corporate reporting standards that restrict the opportunistic behaviour of managers and amend IR guidelines to make them more comprehensible for integrated report preparers, therefore improves the implementation of IR.Social implicationsThis study sheds light on the current state and consequences of IR adoption in South Africa before and after the mandatory IR disclosure requirement, thus, international policymakers and regulators can refer to the critical aspects in our findings when considering whether to support IR mandatory adoption in their markets.Originality/valueThis paper sheds light on the emerging debate over the usefulness of IR and the necessity of mandatorily adopting this new reporting framework. In addition, by showing that the mandatory adoption of IR significantly reduces corporate misreporting practices, we also contribute to the literature on corporate misreporting behaviour.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects commercial speech from government interference. Commercial speech has been defined by the US Supreme Court as speech that proposes a commercial transaction, such as marketing and labeling. Companies that produce products associated with public health harms, such as alcohol, tobacco, and food, thus have a constitutional right to market these products to consumers. This article will examine the evolution of US law related to the protection of commercial speech, often at the expense of public health. It will then identify outstanding questions related to the commercial speech doctrine and the few remaining avenues available in the United States to regulate commercial speech including the use of government speech and addressing deceptive and misleading commercial speech.

Purpose The purpose of this paper was twofold. First, to explore the currently performed board roles. Second, to investigate the relationship between board role performance and compliance with international financial reporting standard (IFRS) disclosure requirements among microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Uganda. Design/methodology/approach This study used a mixed methods research design. The relationship between board role performance and compliance with IFRSs requirements was tested using Partial Least Squares. Confirmatory Factory Analysis and interviews were conducted to establish the performed board roles. Findings The findings suggest that among the known board roles of strategic, service and control, the control role is mostly performed. Results further suggest that board role performance is a significant predictor of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. In terms of control variables, MFI size and membership to the Association of Microfinance Institutions of Uganda were significant. Other control variables (liquidity, leverage and profitability) are not significantly associated with compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. Research limitations/implications Compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements was based on one financial year owing to a lack of data for many years. Practical implications The results are important for governing boards regarding improving compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. The results specifically suggest that MFIs’ boards must focus on performing the control role if compliance with IFRS disclosures requirements is to improve. Originality/value This paper is original because it uses perceptions to measure board role performance, unlike previous studies that used proxies such as board size and proportion of non-executive directors to infer board role performance. The study also reveals that it is only the control role that is important in enhancing compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. Such evidence does not currently exist.

Purpose This paper aims to examine sites of dissonance or consensus between global investor responses to the draft standards, International Financial Reporting Standards S1 (IFRS) (General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability-related Financial Information) and IFRS S2 (Climate-related Disclosures), issued by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Design/methodology/approach A thematic content analysis was used to capture investor views expressed in their comment letters submitted in the consultation period (March to July 2022) in comparison to the ex ante position (issue of draft standards, March 2022) and ex post summary feedback (ISSB staff papers, September 2022) of the ISSB. Findings There was investor consensus in support of the ISSB and the development of the draft standards. However, there were sites of dissonance between investors and the ISSB, notably regarding the basis and focus of reporting (double or single/financial materiality and enterprise value); definitional clarity; emissions reporting; and assurance. Incrementally, the research further highlights that investors display heterogeneity of opinion. Practical and Social implications The ISSB standards will provide a framework for future sustainability reporting. This research highlights the significance of such reporting to investors through their responses to the draft standards. The findings reveal sites of dissonance in the development and alignment of draft standards to user needs. The views of investors, as primary users, should help inform the development of sustainability-related standards by a global standard-setting body apposite to current policy and future reporting requirements, and their usefulness to users in practice. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper makes an original contribution to the comment letter literature, hitherto focused on financial reporting with a relative lack of investor engagement. Using thematic analysis, sites of dissonance are examined between the views of investors and the ISSB on their development of sustainability reporting standards.

'Investor Protection and Corporate Governance' analyzes the impact of corporate governance on firm performance and valuation. Using unique datasets gathered at the firm-level—the first such data in the region—and results from a homogeneous corporate governance questionnaire, the book examines corporate governance characteristics, ownership structures, dividend policies, and performance measures. The book's analysis reveals the very high levels of ownership and voting rights concentrations and monolithic governance structures in the largest samples of Latin American companies up to now, and new data emphasize the importance of specific characteristics of the investor protection regimes in several Latin American countries. By and large, those firms with better governance measures across several dimensions are granted higher valuations and thus lower cost of capital. This title will be useful to researchers, policy makers, government officials, and other professionals involved in corporate governance, economic policy, and business finance, law, and management.

The Taiwanese authorities issued and revised the disclosure regulations with regard to auditor fees three times during the period 2002–2012. The most important change in disclosure regulation is that firms have to disclose their auditor fees and have been able to disclose fees in the form of individual amount or fee range since 2009. This study extends the perspective of auditor independence to explore the effect of mandatory disclosure requirements and disclosure types of auditor fees on earnings management of listed corporations. The results show that the enhanced information transparency induced by the mandatory disclosure requirements of auditor fees is useful to reduce both positive accruals-based earnings management and real earnings management. Furthermore, firms that disclose their auditor fees in the form of individual amount have lower positive accruals-based earnings management than those in the form of fee range. The overall findings are consistent with the notion that the enhanced information transparency related to auditor fees is associated with enhanced auditor independence and thus support Dye's (1991) theory.

Information technology has a crucial role in all types of businesses and is a product of intellectual capital. Intellectual capital is not recognized as an asset of a company since there is no generally accepted model for measurement of human capital. Research was performed in order to investigate the awareness of financial statement preparers regarding the importance of using the professional judgement in the context of intangible assets. The content analysis method and the method of induction have been used. Nonetheless, an analysis of activity ratios has been done in order to gain an insight into the effectiveness of the company's assets. Empirical research conducted on a sample of computer programming companies has shown the lack of professional judgment in the context of accounting policies applied. Additionally, the value of intangible assets is underestimated. Computer programming companies should give greater emphasis to disclosures in the notes of financial statements since the non-financial disclosures are found to be at a low level.

This paper comparatively analyzes the internal determinants of environmental disclosure practices among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To achieve this, secondary data on the characteristics of the measures of the board and the characteristics of the audit committee were obtained from a sample of 60 companies from across the region (20 each from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). The regression technique was used to analyze the data and the results revealed the fact that, while the characteristics of the measures of the board and the audit committee were found to be the significant determinants of the environmental disclosure of firms in Kenya and Nigeria, the same cannot be said of firms in South Africa. The study, therefore, recommends that borrowing from South Africa, environmental management practices should be institutionalized in the entire region. Additionally, standard-setters should make practical efforts by developing new reporting standards which will guide and encourage a full disclosure of environmental concerns by firms.

This commentary considers the intellectual property (IP) system from a global environmental law perspective by exploring the extent to which patent-related treaties, such as the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights and the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Cooperation Treaty, can facilitate implementation of global environmental standards in the field of biodiversity law. It provides practical guidance to countries that wish to introduce patent disclosure-related mechanisms into their legal systems with a view to mainstreaming instances of global justice, fairness and equity, and raises awareness of the limitations arising from their extant IP obligations. Global environmental law standards have exercised an undeniable influence on the political discourse in international IP policy making in the field of patent disclosure. Still, many patent disclosure requirements that pre-date the Nagoya Protocol apply only to genetic resources the provenance of which is the same country that established the requirement. However, if a country designates its patent or IP office as a compliance checkpoint under the Nagoya Protocol, then the disclosure requirement should encompass at least the genetic resources originating from all countries that are contracting parties to this instrument. This could allow the fulfilment of a core monitoring obligation of the latter, while enabling wider synergies and transparency within the IP system.