Legal Systems and Their Impact on the Amount of Disclosure Related to IT Problems: Evidence from the Y2K Dilemma

This study examines the impact of nation’s legal system on corporate disclosures. However, this study breaks with prior research in two significant ways. First, this study extends prior research by analyzing differences in disclosure practices in Roman-Germanic Law nations of different origins within this legal family. Second, this study focuses on a single disclosure issue rather than general disclosures as investigated in previous studies. Specifically, this study analyzes the association between legal systems and disclosure practices related to the Year 2000 (Y2K) dilemma. Empirical findings reported in this paper are based on a survey of the 1997-1998 fiscal-year annual reports of 1618 organizations from 17 countries. Tests of means indicated a significant different between the average amount of Y2K disclosure from firms in nations with a Common Law legal system compared to their counterparts from nations with a Code Law legal system. Results from multiple regression analysis also supported the positive association between a Common Law legal system and the amount of Y2K related disclosure. Supplementary analysis of disclosure practices of firms from Code Law countries indicate the underlying origin (that is French, German and Scandinavian) of this legal system in each nation had a significant impact on the amount of Y2K information disclosed. That is, organizations from countries with a Code Law legal system based on French origins were significant greater than compared to organizations from nations with a Code Law legal system of Germanic origins. There were not significant differences, however, with the amount of disclosure on this IT related problem of companies from nations with a Code Law legal system of Scandinavian origins.