Item 4. Controls and Procedures
Item 4.
Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
The Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have evaluated the effectiveness of the Company's disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) as of April 30, 2025. The Company's disclosure controls and procedures are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by the Company in the reports the Company files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and to provide reasonable assurance that such information is accumulated and communicated to the Company’s management, including its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on this evaluation, the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer have concluded that, as of April 30, 2025, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective because of the material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting, as described below.
The Company's management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Rule 13a-15(f) under the Exchange Act. As required by Rule 13a-15(c) under the Exchange Act, the Company's management carried out an evaluation, with the participation of the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of January 31, 2025. The framework on which such evaluation was based is contained in the report entitled "Internal Control-Integrated Framework" (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission.
The Company's internal control over financial reporting is designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
Based on management's evaluation, management has concluded that we did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting as of April 30, 2025, due to the material weaknesses identified below.
Material Weaknesses in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
A material weakness is a deficiency, or a combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting, such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the Company's annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
The material weaknesses are as follows:
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We did not design and maintain effective controls in response to the risks of material misstatement. Specifically, changes to existing controls or the implementation of new controls have not been sufficient to respond to changes to the risks of material misstatement in financial reporting. This contributed to the following material weaknesses;
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We did not design and maintain effective certain controls over financial reporting relating to the review and approval of manual journal entries, review of the financial close process, including the statement of cash flows, and review of certain financial policies and procedures;
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We did not design and maintain effective controls at operating locations in the Middle East and North Africa ("MENA"), including not maintaining sufficient documentation to support an evaluation that controls over business processes were designed and operating effectively;
These material weaknesses resulted in adjustments to property, plant, and equipment, net of accumulated depreciation, trade accounts payable, trade accounts receivable, and the statement of cash flows. These adjustments resulted in a revision of the unaudited consolidated financial statements as of and for the period ended April 30, 2024, a restatement as of and for the period ended July 31, 2024 and material adjustments as of and for the period ended October 31, 2024.
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We did not design and maintain effective controls over information technology general controls ("ITGCs"), specifically controls over the timely review of user access and administrative access to adequately restrict access, program change management, computer operations, and program development;
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We did not design and maintain effective controls over managements review of the completeness and accuracy of certain system-generated reports.
These material weaknesses did not result in a misstatement to the Company's annual or interim financial statements.
Each of these material weaknesses could result in a material misstatement of substantially all accounts and disclosures in the Company's annual or interim financial statements that would not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
Remediation Plan for the Material Weaknesses in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
To address these matters, the Company has begun implementing its remediation plan. Our ongoing remediation plans include the following:
(i) performing an entity wide risk assessment to identify relevant risks and changes to those relevant risks to our financial reporting; ii) designing and implementing controls to identify and evaluate changes in our business and the impact on our internal control over financial reporting; (iii) engaging outside consultants with expertise relating to ITGCs to document processes, assist in addressing the design and operating ITGCs, monitoring and testing reviews focusing on systems supporting our financial reporting process (iv) designing and maintaining controls and documentation evidencing those ITGCs for knowledge transfer and function changes, including access and program control and change management, computer operations, and program development, (v) designing and maintaining effective controls to review the completeness and accuracy of certain system-generated reports; and (vi) outsourcing certain functions to third-party providers, specifically relating to servers and firewalls, and managed detection and response.
Our remediation plans related to entity level controls, financial reporting controls, and business process controls include:
(i) enhancing the design of controls for the review of and posting of journal entries; (ii) evaluating and updating documented formal accounting policies, financial reporting, processes and procedures; and overall internal control procedures; and (iii) updating the design of controls for the preparation and review of the financial close process, including the statement of cash flows.
In addition to the items noted above, our remediation plans related to our MENA locations include: (i) evaluating and updating the Company's evidence of internal control policies and procedures; (ii) enhancing the design of controls over business processes that are relevant to our MENA locations; and (iii) formalizing our financial reporting processes and procedures.
The Company anticipates the actions described above will strengthen the Company's internal control over financial reporting and will address the related material weaknesses described above. However, the material weaknesses cannot be considered fully remediated until the necessary controls have been appropriately designed and implemented. The remediation processes and procedures will also need to be in operation for a period of time and management conclude through testing, that these controls are operating effectively.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting . There were no changes to our internal control over financial reporting which were identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rules 13a-15(d) or 15d-15(d) under the Exchange during the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2025, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
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PART II OTHER INFORMATION
Text extracted from the filing as submitted to EDGAR. Formatting, tables and exhibits are simplified for reading; the original document is authoritative for anything you rely on.