The Impact of Corporate Governance Compliance on the Relationship between Financial Reports Opacity and Audit Fees: An Applied Study

Objective: This research aims to study and test the relationship between the financial reports opacity and the fees for auditing the full historical annual financial statements, and the impact of the level of corporate governance compliance as a moderator variable on this relationship.
Design and Methodolog: The research adopted the content analysis approach to exam the financial reports on a sample of 56 non-financial firms listed in the Egyptian stock exchange during the period from 2019 to 2022, with a total of 224 views.
Results:   The results provided applied evidence that indicate the positive and significant impact of financial reports opacity on audit fees, as well as the difference in the impact of financial reports opacity on audit fees depending on the level of corporate governance compliance, the strength of the influential relationship of the model increased from 24.3% to 41.3% after adding the moderator variable.
Originality and Value: This study represents a continuation of previous research efforts in providing applied evidence from the Egyptian business environment, on the impact role of the level of corporate governance compliance on the relationship between the financial reports opacity and audit fees, which contributes to narrowing the research gap in this field.