2.6 Hypothesis Development2.6.1 Board Independence HypothesisBoth Beasley (1996) and Uzun et al (2004) demonstrated that a greater percentage of directors do not Independent executives on the board of directors of US public companies could reduce the likelihood of corporate fraud. These findings indicate that independent directors are more likely to represent shareholder interests. Therefore, a higher proportion of independent non-executive directors on the board could increase the effectiveness of the board as a monitoring mechanism on management. On the other hand, there is other evidence that calls into question the benefits of independent advice. Persons (2005) found that a board composed largely of independent directors has no significant effect on the likelihood of financial fraud in the United States. The study instead highlighted that the probability of financial fraud is lower when the audit committee is made up exclusively of independent directors. Although the audit committee is a subset of the main board that depends on the composition of the board itself, this result may indicate that the independence of the audit committee rather than the board itself is more effective in addressing fraud risk. The mixed results appear to show that the impact of independent board audits on the likelihood of corporate fraud remains undefined. However, the governance principles of the UK Code support the view that board independence is an essential factor in effective governance, which in turn could have a significant effect on reducing the likelihood of corporate fraud. The UK Corporate Governance Code recommends that at least half the board of directors of UK listed companies (excluding the chair) be made up of independent non-executive directors (at least two independent...... half of the document.. ....d depth to effectively mitigate the risk of corruption financial and legal experts, diversity of backgrounds and experiences could help the audit committee promote more constructive discussion and penetrate more deeply into business issues. Therefore, this study predicts that the availability of a legal expert in the audit committee could improve the effectiveness of the committee's oversight function which helps to reduce the probability of corporate fraud, suggesting the following hypothesis: H4: The probability of corporate fraud is lower when the audit committee audit has at least one member with legal experience.