Los Comités de Auditoria, ¿Útiles y Necesarios?
Audit Committees – How Useful and Necessary are they?
Resumen
En esta última década hemos sido testigos de una oleada de publicaciones de Códigos de Buen Gobierno, en distintos países. El objetivo principal de los mismos consiste en mejorar el gobierno de las sociedades, indicando a tal efecto las recomendaciones que deben seguir las empresas para lograr dicho propósito. De este modo, resulta frecuente la recomendación de crear un comité de auditoria en las empresas, con miras a garantizar la independencia de los auditores, así como la integridad y fiabilidad de la información que éstas publican, entre otras cuestiones. Entre otros motivos, la falta de independencia de los auditores, las actuaciones negligentes de los administradores ejecutivos (gerentes), la publicación de información financiera fraudulenta, la pérdida de confianza de los accionistas en dicha información así como la existencia de controles internos deficientes han propiciado la aparición de los comités de auditora en los países del ámbito anglosajón. Con todo, el objetivo de este trabajo es poner de relieve qué papel juegan los comités de auditor(a en las empresas y en qué medida la presencia de los mismos redunda en una mejor calidad de la información publicada y evita actos fraudulentos. Así, aunque teóricamente los comités de auditoria se conciben como efectivos, algunos estudios empíricos parecen sugerir que dicha efectividad no se da en la práctica. En este sentido, el estudio de estos trabajos nos permite analizar hasta qué punto la efectividad de los comités de auditoria puede ponerse en entredicho.
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