CleanCore Solutions, Inc. 10-Q

ITEM 4. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES. Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures We maintain “disclosure controls and procedures,” as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, that are designed to ensure information required to be disclosed in our reports that we file or furnish pursuant to the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer (our principal executive officer) and Chief Financial Officer (our principal financial officer), as appropriate to allow for timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Our management, with the participation of our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, has evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of the end of the period covered by this report. Based on such evaluation, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer have concluded that, as of such date, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective at a reasonable assurance level due to material weaknesses identified related to (1) the lack of a sufficient number of trained professionals with the expertise to design, implement, and execute a formal risk assessment process and formal accounting policies, procedures, and controls over accounting and financial reporting to ensure the timely and accurate recording of financial transactions while maintaining a segregation of duties; and (2) the lack of a sufficient number of trained professionals with the appropriate U.S. GAAP technical expertise to identify, evaluate, and account for complex transactions and review valuation reports prepared by external specialists. 28 Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting During the three months ended March 31, 2024, we were privately owned and not subject to the internal control over financial reporting requirement of the Sarbanes Oxley Act. A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed by, or under the supervision of, a company’s principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, and effected by a company’s board of directors, management and other personnel to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP. A material weakness is a significant deficiency, or a combination of significant deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that it is reasonably possible that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. In preparing our financial statements as of and for the three months ended March 31, 2024 and 2023, management identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting. The material weaknesses we identified related to (1) the lack of a sufficient number of trained professionals with the expertise to design, implement, and execute a formal risk assessment process and formal accounting policies, procedures, and controls over accounting and financial reporting to ensure the timely and accurate recording of financial transactions while maintaining a segregation of duties; and (2) the lack of a sufficient number of trained professionals with the appropriate U.S. GAAP technical expertise to identify, evaluate, and account for complex transactions and review valuation reports prepared by external specialists. We are planning on implementing measures designed to improve our internal control over financial reporting to remediate these material weaknesses, including formalizing our processes and internal control documentation and strengthening supervisory reviews by our financial management and hiring additional qualified accounting and finance personnel and engaging financial consultants to enable the implementation of internal control over financial reporting and segregating duties amongst accounting and finance personnel. While we are implementing these measures, we cannot assure you that these efforts will remediate our material weaknesses and significant deficiencies in a timely manner, or at all, or prevent restatements of our financial statements in the future. If we are unable to successfully remediate our material weaknesses, or identify any future significant deficiencies or material weaknesses, the accuracy and timing of our financial reporting may be adversely affected, we may be unable to maintain compliance with securities law requirements regarding timely filing of periodic reports, and the market price of our common stock may decline as a result. In accordance with the provisions of the JOBS Act, we and our independent registered public accounting firm were not required to, and did not, perform an evaluation of our internal control over financial reporting as of March 31, 2024, nor any period subsequent in accordance with the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Accordingly, we cannot assure you that we have identified all, or that we will not in the future have additional, material weaknesses. Material weaknesses may still exist when we report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as required under Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Inherent Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls Our management, including our principal executive officer and principal financial officer, do not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. Our management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and management necessarily is required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures. 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 the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, 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 controls. 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 its stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate. Due to inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected. 29 PART II OTHER INFORMATION