Analysis of the the Audit Report of companies listed on Euronext Lisbon in the context of COVID-19

The emergence of COVID-19 brought many changes and uncertainties to companies, which resulted in new business risks and threats to the going concern assumption, which cannot be neglected by the auditor. Auditing is also affected in its process, due to the limitations in obtaining audit evidence, arising from the fact that many audit procedures are carried out remotely. Considering the above, the aim of this study is to verify if the COVID-19 influences the Audit Report of the companies listed in Euronext Lisbon, concerning the type of opinion and the existence of emphases and relevant audit matters. For this purpose, a content analysis of 78 Audit Reports was carried out and measures of association between the variables under study were applied. The results proved that the COVID-19 influences the audit report only at the level of emphases emission. This study presents contributions, as it deals with a current and little explored theme, innovating also by the fact that it analyses the COVID-19 as a determining factor of the Audit Report.