We revisit the client importance and auditor independence debate and investigate whether investors' perceptions of the auditor's economic dependence has changed since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). Client importance is measured as the proportion of client non-audit service...

Audits of internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) are typically “integrated” with the audit of the financial statements (FS)— both audits are conducted by the same audit firm, which designs procedures to satisfy the objectives of both audits simultaneously. A common assumption is...

We examine the relation between nonaudit fees and SOX 404 opinions on the effectiveness of a client's internal control over financial reporting. We find a negative association between nonaudit fees and the auditor's propensity to issue an adverse SOX 404 opinion during 2004-2006 (when AS2 was...