Browsing by Author "Santos, Paulo Levi Norberto dos"
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- Corporate fraud and litigation risk in financial distress : an empirical study on SEC’s enforcements against public traded companies after the Financial Crisis of 2007-08Publication . Santos, Paulo Levi Norberto dos; Reis, Ricardo César Ribeiro Ventura FerreiraThe financial crisis of 2007-08 puts in question the capability of market regulators to act on behalf of investors to guarantee that the information available is accurate and reliable. In this study, we research 45 firms that have been enforced by the SEC between 2010-2013 for alleged corporate misconduct. We find that fraud firms experience non-significant negative abnormal returns prior to SEC’s announcement, however after the event day, the abnormal returns are positive. We also find significant increases in the mean residuals bid-ask spreads, meaning that after the event, fraud firms became riskier, leading investors to demand higher returns which increases eventual financial distress costs. Finally, we study the governance characteristics for 32 fraud firms and 32 control firms (non-enforced) one year prior to SEC’s enforcement and the following four years (2009-2016) finding that fraud firms have slightly poorer governance. Outside directors dominate the board of directors for both groups, fraud firms have larger boards and more board meetings. Moreover, the majority of CEOs are also Chairman of the board for both groups, blockownership increases and institutional ownership decreases for both the groups and director’s compensation is affected by regulators activity, as it can affect future returns. Our results show that fraud firms are identical to non-fraud firms, financial crime has become more complexed and regulators are slow to identify and judge corporate misconduct. On the other hand, fraud firms are quicker to make the proper adjustments in their structures, becoming more identical to non-fraud firms.