Does Litigation Risk Shape Environmental Disclosure Decisions? Evidence from Peers’ Environmental Disclosure Lawsuits
研究企业管理者如何权衡诉讼风险与环境信息特性来调整披露策略，发现同行被诉后企业会在电话会议中增加前瞻性环境披露、减少历史性披露，以降低被诉风险。
ABSTRACT We examine how managers’ incentives to minimize litigation risk interact with the unique features of environmental information to shape disclosure decisions. We rely on peer firms’ lawsuits to generate variation in environmental disclosure litigation risk, consistent with prior research and anecdotal evidence suggesting that firms perceive an increase in environmental disclosure litigation risk after a peer firm is sued for related disclosures. Although we provide mixed evidence around changes in total environmental disclosure in response to peer lawsuits, we offer robust evidence that firms provide more forward-looking (and less historical) environmental disclosures in their conference calls in response to peers’ environmental disclosure lawsuits. Our evidence is consistent with firms providing less verifiable disclosures to minimize the risk of being sued for misrepresenting their environmental information. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text. JEL Classifications: K22; M14; M41.