La diligence du comité d'audit dans les entreprises françaises : question d'indépendance ou de compétence ?

We investigate the relationship between the composition of the audit committee and its diligence for 176 non-financial French companies having an audit committee during the period 2004?2008. In this environment of voluntary establishment of an audit committee, we measure the audit committee diligence jointly by the number of meetings and the attendance of its members. The results show that the number of meetings is related to the independence of its members, while the educational level and the experience acquired by members in other audit committees enhance both the number of meetings and the attendance. The gender and age diversity do not matter in committee diligence and the presence of foreign members affects it negatively. These results question the transposition into French law of the 8th European Directive, which imposes few constraints on the independence and competence of audit committee members and obscures the issue of audit committee diligence. They also challenge the role of Chairman of the audit committee (or of the board) in bringing cohesion between the members as well as a collective dynamic in situations of diversity.