Spain is one of the European countries that is the most strongly committed to the presentation of non-financial information. In 2017, Spain adapted its legislation to Directive 2014/95/EU through Royal Decree-Law 18/2017, which required Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to provide information in accordance with the requirements of the European Union (EU) Directive, with respect to financial years from 1 January 2017. Our research is focused on Spanish IBEX-35¹ listed companies and seeks to identify current trends in non-financial reporting. To our knowledge, the present paper is the first study to examine the impact made in Spain by the legislative changes. Our aim is to analyse the publication of non-financial information by Spanish listed companies whose first reports in this regard were made from early 2018. Specifically, we consider the impact of this information disclosure, determining whether the companies in question restrict themselves to meeting regulatory requirements or whether they go further and voluntarily supply additional information. Our findings show that the level of regulatory compliance produced is associated with the business sector in which the company operates. We also show that the highest rates of disclosure of non-financial information correspond to companies that provide this information in the sustainability report.

Sustainability reporting and assurance have considerably increased in the last decades. Among different sectors, ‘sensitive sectors’ attracted the attention of many academics. However, most of research works were focused only on ‘environmentally-sensitive sectors’. Therefore, after the loss of trust caused by the lack of transparency due to the crisis, ‘socially-sensitive sectors’ as financial services sector needs to strengthen users’ confidence in the credibility of their reported activities. The aim of this paper is to assess assurance practices worldwide in one of the main ‘socially-sensitive sectors’: the financial services sector. We study what factors are associated with adoption of assurance and choice of assurance provider, and whether assurance statements differ across providers. Our results reveal that, compared to the global context, companies operating in the financial services sector are more likely to adopt assurance and to choose accountants as assurance providers. Our findings show that adoption of assurance depends on company size. We also found that companies using the financial services sector supplement are more prone to adopt assurance. Our results also evidence that choice of assurance provider depends on the country and listing status Finally, our research shows a great variability in assurance statements across providers.

Financial scandals have highlighted the need for greater corporate transparency. Thus, corporate governance has emerged as an instrument for corporations to fulfil their social responsibility by offering more reliable information to their stakeholders. In this sense, the corporate governance report has become one of the leading mechanisms of business reporting to attend the growing need for reliable information by users. External and independent assurance of corporate governance reports is a tool to reduce potential risk derived from malpractices. However, within the Spanish context, there is a few number of listed companies who assure their corporate governance reports, and some of them have been shaken by corporate malpractices and financial scandals. This work tries to offer a critical appraisal of current corporate governance of assurance statements in Spain, developing a research strategy based on the case-study. Thus, by analysing assurance on corporate governance reports in three Spanish listed companies, we identify strengths and weaknesses of an unusual assurance process. Obviously, because of the recent scandals occurred in the analysed companies, we raise a particular concern about the potential managerial capture of this activity. Without real changes in governance mechanisms, the corporate governance assurance could amount to little more than a public relations activity.

CSR assurance in sensitive sectors - a worldwide analysis of financial services industry

Sustainability assurance in Spanish non-listed companies