SES AI Corp
For the period ended Dec 31, 2023. Filed Feb 27, 2024.
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FY2023 · Filed Feb 27, 2024
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Item 9A. Controls and Procedures
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our chief executive officer (“CEO”) and chief financial officer (“CFO”), we conducted an evaluation of the effectiveness of the design and operation of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2023, as such term is defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by us in reports that we file or submit under 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 principal executive officer and principal financial officer, as appropriate, to allow for timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Based on this evaluation, our principal executive officer and principal financial officer have concluded that as of December 31, 2023, our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective due to material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, as discussed in more detail below.
Management’s Report on Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting
As required by SEC rules and regulations implementing Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2022 (“SOX”), our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as this term is defined in Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act. Our internal control over financial reporting is designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of our financial statements for external reporting purposes in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Our internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that:
(1)pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of our company,
(2)provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and that our receipts and expenditures are being made only in accordance with authorizations of our management and directors, and
(3)provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use or disposition of our assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.
Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect errors or misstatements in our financial statements. 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 or compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.
Management with participation of the CEO and CFO under the oversight of the Audit Committee of our Board of Directors evaluated the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023 using the criteria set forth by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (“COSO”) in Internal Control – Integrated Framework (2013).
A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of a company’s annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis.
Based on the evaluation described above, management determined that our internal control over financial reporting was not effective as of December 31, 2023, because of material weaknesses. Specifically, the Company did not design and maintain sufficient user access and monitoring controls to ensure appropriate segregation of duties and adequately restrict access to a financial application. As a result, automated and manual business process controls that are dependent on the affected IT general controls were also deemed ineffective, as they could have been adversely affected due to their reliance on information and configurations from the affected IT system. In addition, a management review control associated with the valuation of the sponsor earn-out liabilities did not operate effectively as it did not evaluate a key assumption used in the valuation at an appropriate level of precision.
If not remediated, or if we identify further material weaknesses in our internal control, our failure to establish and maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting could result in material misstatements in our consolidated financial statements or a failure to meet our reporting and financial obligations.
The material weaknesses did not result in any material misstatements to our consolidated financial statements or disclosures in any of the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 or 2021.
Our independent registered public accounting firm, Grant Thornton LLP, who audited the consolidated financial statements included in this annual report, has expressed an adverse opinion on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2023, which appears in Item 8 Financial Statements and Supplementary Data of this 2023 Form 10-K.
Remediation Plan
We are taking the following actions to remediate the material weaknesses described in this Item 9A and to enhance our overall control environment. We are committed to ensuring that our internal control over financial reporting is effective.
| ● | We are developing a detailed remediation plan, with appropriate executive sponsorship, to specifically address the material weaknesses. |
| ● | We have hired, and will continue to hire, additional professionally qualified accountants who have the appropriate level of expertise in the areas of accounting, financial reporting, and IT general controls. |
| ● | We are taking steps to enhance the design of existing control activities related to IT environment and implement additional process-level control activities and ensure they are operating effectively. |
| ● | We have and will continue to restrict access to the financial application to ensure appropriate segregation of duties. |
| ● | We will design updated processes and controls around change management monitoring to ensure that all changes have sufficient documentation and are reviewed by an authorized person. |
| ● | We will maintain sufficient and appropriate review documentation for the assessment of all key assumptions related to the valuation of sponsor earn out liabilities. |
We intend to complete the remediation process as promptly as possible. We may discover additional material weaknesses that require additional time and resources to remediate, and we may decide to take additional measures to address the material weaknesses or modify the remediation steps described above. Until these weaknesses are remediated, we plan to continue to perform additional analyses and other procedures to ensure that our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Remediation of Previously Reported Material Weaknesses
As previously reported in Part II, Item 9A, ‘Controls and Procedures’ of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 16, 2023, in connection with our assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022, we identified material weaknesses related to insufficient complement of resources, ineffective risk assessment process and ineffective information and communication activities which resulted in ineffective process-level controls in a majority of financial reporting processes.
In response to the material weaknesses, the Company developed and implemented a remediation plan. We hired additional qualified resources, trained those resources and engaged a nationally recognized accounting firm to review the design of high-risk processes. We enhanced our risk assessment process and designed controls to mitigate the risk of material misstatements at an increased level of precision. We implemented new tools and applications to ensure timely compliance with the internal control requirements. Based on those
remediation actions, management has concluded that the material weaknesses previously reported have been remediated as of December 31, 2023. As noted above, we have reported material weaknesses in 2023.
Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting
As described above, we have taken and continue to take steps to remediate material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting described in “Remediation Plan” and “Remediation of Previously Reported Material Weaknesses.” Other than in connection with the remediation process described above, no change in our internal control over financial reporting occurred during the most recent fiscal quarter that materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
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