Item 9A. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES

Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures

As of December 31, 2019, an evaluation was performed under the supervision and with the participation of the Company’s management, including the Chief Executive Officer (“CEO”) and Chief Financial Officer (“CFO”), of the effectiveness of the design and operation of the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures. Based on that evaluation, the Company’s CEO and CFO concluded that the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.

The foregoing evaluation of the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures was based on the definition in Exchange Act Rule 13a-15(e), which requires that disclosure controls and procedures are effectively designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by an issuer in the reports that it files or submits with the SEC under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized, and reported, within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms, and is accumulated and communicated to the issuer’s management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, or persons performing similar functions, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.

Management’s Report on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

Our management’s report on internal control over financial reporting is included as the “Statement of Financial Responsibility and Management’s Report on Internal Controls over Financial Reporting” in Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplemental Data,” of this Form 10-K. The Company’s management concluded that the Company’s internal control over financial reporting was effective in providing reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of the Company’s financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles as of December 31, 2019. PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the independent registered public accounting firm that audited the Company’s consolidated financial statements contained herein, also audited the Company’s internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2019. The audit report is included in Item 8, “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data,” of this Form 10-K.

Changes in Internal Control over Financial Reporting

There were no changes in the Company’s internal control over financial reporting during the most recently completed fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2019 that materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, the Company’s internal control over financial reporting.

Limitations on the Effectiveness of Controls

The Company's management, including the CEO and CFO, does not expect that the Company’s control system will prevent all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are 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 and instances of fraud, if any, within the Company have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of 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 control. The design of any system of controls also is 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 the policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.

Form 10-K ♦ 118		Celebrating 25 Years as a Public Company

Part II ♦ Item 9A – Controls and Procedures

CEO and CFO Certifications

Included among the exhibits to this Form 10-K are forms of “Certifications” of the Company’s CEO and CFO as required in accordance with Section 302 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (the “Section 302 Certification”). The Section 302 Certifications refer to this evaluation of the Company’s disclosure policies and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. The information in this section should be read in conjunction with the Section 302 Certifications for a more complete understanding of the topics presented.