Information technology (IT) services company Unisys Corp. revealed Monday the discovery of faults in its internal control over financial reporting (ICFR), including involving its compliance functions, following an internal investigation it first disclosed earlier this month.
The audit and finance committee of Unisys’s board of directors consulted with company management on its identification of “material weaknesses” in how financial information was communicated by the IT, legal, and compliance departments to the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and other governance decision-makers, Unisys disclosed in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The deficiencies didn’t “allow timely decisions related to both financial reporting and other nonfinancial reporting” in the company’s reports filed with the SEC, the probe found. Unisys concluded its ICFR was not effective as of Dec. 31, 2021, affecting multiple quarterly reports.
Unisys “does not expect these findings to result in any changes to the financial results in the company’s previously reported financial statements or to impact the financial results in the company’s unaudited financial statements for the period as of and ended September 30, 2022,” it said.
Unisys didn’t provide any further details regarding why it initiated the probe. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The company, in the coming days, plans to file to the SEC an amended annual report for the year ended Dec. 31, 2021. The report will include a statement its ICFR was not effective as of that time. It will also file amended quarterly reports, Unisys said.
Its outside audit firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, will issue a revised opinion, stating Unisys’s ICFR was not effective as of Dec. 31, 2021.
Unisys said it will file its Form 10-Q for the third quarter ended Sept. 30, 2022, “within the next several days.” The company announced Nov. 8 the report would be delayed by its investigation, though it still acknowledged then it sustained more than $40 million in losses in the third quarter.
Following the announcements, the price of Unisys stock fell nearly 50 percent.
The company, the audit committee, and its board are “committed to maintaining a strong internal control environment and are currently evaluating remediation efforts that will be designed and implemented to enhance the company’s control environment,” Unisys disclosed. The company will wait until after the remediations have been in place “for a sufficient period of time” before management will conclude the fixes worked.
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