TMC the metals Co Inc.

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, we conducted an evaluation 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 on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective as of December 31, 2025.

Disclosure controls and procedures are controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed or submitted 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 controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports filed under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting. Internal control over financial reporting is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act, as a process designed by, or under the supervision of, the company’s principal executive and principal financial officers and effected by the 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 for external purposes in accordance with GAAP. The company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that:

As of December 31, 2025, under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the framework inInternal Control-Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this assessment, our management concluded that, as of December 31, 2025, our internal controls over financial reporting, were effective, following the remediation of a material weakness discussed below.

As previously disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023 (the “2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K”), management identified a material weakness in the operating effectiveness of our internal control over the accounting for significant, non-routine transactions that resulted from the inadequate and untimely involvement of stakeholders and technical advisors with an appropriate level of expertise to account for significant, non-routine transactions. 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 financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.

This material weakness resulted in errors in the financial statements and related disclosures in our Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, and for the six months ended June 30, 2023 and nine months ended September 30, 2023. See Note 23 to the audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2023, included in our 2023 Annual Report on Form 10-K for more information about these errors and our revisions to these previously issued financial statements.

In order to remediate this material weakness, we developed a policy to assist with the identification of significant, non-routine transactions and to define the processes to follow in addressing the accounting and reporting requirements of these transactions. In addition, we rolled out training on processes and controls related to significant, non-routine transactions and identifying circumstances under which we use technical advisors in connection with evaluating such transactions. In 2025, we identified several significant, non-routine transactions that occurred, and we applied the processes as required under the new policy. The new policy, processes and training worked as designed and resulted with the proper accounting and reporting of these significant, non-routine transactions in 2025. As a result, our management concluded that the material weakness had been remediated.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Except as noted above, there were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation of such internal control that occurred during the fourth quarter of the year ended December 31, 2025 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.

Limitations on the Effectiveness of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and implemented, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system’s objectives will be 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 the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues within a company are detected. The inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple errors or mistakes. Controls can also be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more people, or by management override of the controls. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and may not be detected. 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.