Archer Aviation Inc

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated, as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report, the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”)) as required by Rules 13a-15(b) and 15d-15(b) of the Exchange Act. Based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of December 31, 2023, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC rules and forms and that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports we file or submit under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act). Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, conducted an assessment of the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the criteria set forth in the Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on the assessment, management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2023. The effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023 has been audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, as stated in its report which appears within Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls and Procedures

In designing and evaluating our disclosure controls and procedures, management, including the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, recognizes that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal control over financial reporting cannot prevent or detect all possible instances of errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the control system's objectives will be met. The design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and management is required to apply judgment in evaluating the benefits of possible controls and procedures relative to their costs.

Remediation of Prior Year Material Weaknesses

We previously identified and disclosed in our 2022 Annual Report on Form 10-K as well as in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for each interim period in fiscal 2023, the following material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting:

▪We did not design and maintain an effective control environment commensurate with our financial reporting requirements. We lacked a sufficient number of trained professionals with (i) an appropriate level of accounting knowledge, training and experience to appropriately analyze, record and disclose accounting matters timely and accurately, and (ii) an appropriate level of knowledge and experience to establish effective processes and controls. Additionally, the limited personnel resulted in an inability to consistently establish appropriate authorities and responsibilities in pursuit of financial reporting objectives, as demonstrated by, among other things, insufficient segregation of duties in our finance and accounting functions.

▪We did not design and maintain an effective risk assessment process at a precise enough level to identify new and evolving risks of material misstatement in our financial statements. 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 to financial reporting.

▪We did not design and maintain formal accounting policies, procedures and controls to achieve complete, accurate and timely financial accounting, reporting and disclosures, including controls over the preparation and review of business performance reviews, account reconciliations and journal entries.

▪We did not design and maintain effective controls over IT general controls for information systems that are relevant to the preparation of our financial statements. Specifically, we did not design and maintain:

•user access controls to ensure appropriate segregation of duties and that adequately restrict user and privileged access to financial applications, programs, and data to appropriate company personnel;

•program change management controls to ensure that IT program and data changes affecting financial IT applications and underlying accounting records are identified, tested, authorized, and implemented appropriately; and

•computer operations controls to ensure that data backups are authorized and monitored.

We have taken the steps we believe are necessary to remediate these material weaknesses to comply with the rules and regulations of the SEC regarding compliance with Section 404(a) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Those remediation measures included the following:

▪We prepared a remediation plan for each of the material weaknesses and trained process owners, developed new controls, enhanced existing controls and evaluated process adoption, and are monitoring results;

▪We hired a new Chief Financial Officer in February 2022 and hired additional accounting, human resources and payroll, and IT personnel to bolster our accounting and IT capabilities and capacity, in order to establish and maintain our internal controls;

▪We implemented controls to formalize roles and review responsibilities that align with our team’s skills and experience and to ensure segregation of duties;

▪We engaged third-party professionals to aid in the design and implementation of a formal risk assessment process and identified and evaluated changes in our internal controls;

▪We implemented formal processes, policies, and procedures supporting our financial close process, including establishing and reviewing thresholds for business performance reviews, formalizing procedures over the review of financial statements, and creation of standard balance sheet reconciliation templates and journal entry controls;

▪We designed and implemented IT general controls, including controls over the review and updating of user access rights and privileges and segregation of duties, and implemented more robust IT policies and procedures over change management, data backup authorization and computer operations; and

▪We implemented a new enterprise resource planning system in February 2023 that automated some of our manual financial reporting processes, enhanced our information technology control environment, and mitigated necessary internal control gaps and limitations that previously resulted in the material weaknesses noted above.

As of December 31, 2023, management has concluded that the actions described above were satisfactorily implemented and have been in place for a sufficient period of time to demonstrate the previously identified material weaknesses have been remediated.

Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting

There were no changes in our internal control over financial reporting (as defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) during the quarter ended December 31, 2023 that have materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.