Item 4. Controls and Procedures
ITEM 4. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES
Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Disclosure controls and procedures are controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by our company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Principal Executive and Principal Financial Officers, or persons performing similar functions, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Our management carried out an evaluation, under the supervision and with the participation of our Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial Officer, of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act). Based upon that evaluation, our Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial Officer have concluded, as they previously concluded as of December 31, 2024, that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of March 31, 2025, because of material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, as referenced below and described in detail in our Annual Report.
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 our annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
We identified a material weakness in our internal controls over financial reporting. In particular we do not have sufficient written documentation of our internal control policies and procedures, including written policies and procedures to ensure the correct application of accounting and financial reporting with respect to the current requirements of GAAP and SEC disclosure requirements.
Notwithstanding the material weakness, we believe that our financial statements contained in this Report fairly present our financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods covered by this Report in all material respects.
Our management, with the oversight of our audit committee, has initiated steps and plans to take additional measures to remediate the underlying causes of the material weakness, which we currently believe will be primarily through revising precision level management review controls and gaining additional assurance regarding our outside service providers’ quality control procedures. It is possible that we may determine that additional remediation steps will be necessary in the future.
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Planned Remediation of Material Weakness
Our management has been actively engaged in developing and implementing remediation plans to address material weakness described above. These remediation efforts are ongoing and include or are expected to include:
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replacing our outside service providers to centralize the accounting function in-house;
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engaging internal control consultants to assist us in performing a financial reporting risk assessment as well as identifying and designing our system of internal controls necessary to mitigate the risks identified;
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preparation of written documentation of our internal control policies and procedures; and
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we have engaged external consultants to provide support and to assist us in our evaluation of more complex applications of GAAP.
We continue to enhance corporate oversight over process-level controls and structures to ensure that there is appropriate assignment of authority, responsibility, and accountability to enable remediation of our material weakness. We believe that our remediation plan will be sufficient to remediate the identified material weakness and strengthen our internal control over financial reporting. As we continue to evaluate, and work to improve, our internal control over financial reporting, management may determine that additional measures to address control deficiencies or modifications to the remediation plan are necessary.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
Except for the ongoing remediation of the material weakness in internal controls over financial reporting noted above, no changes in our internal control over financial reporting were made during the three months ended March 31, 2025, that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Limitations of the Effectiveness of Disclosure Controls and Internal Controls
Our management, including our Principal Executive Officer and Principal Financial Officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and internal controls will prevent all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, within the Company have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of a simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the control.
The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving our stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, a control may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
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PAR T II OTHER INFORMATION