SEC Company Response from TOUCHSTONE APPLIED SCIENCE ASSOCIATES — Jul 27, 2005
TOUCHSTONE APPLIED SCIENCE ASSOCIATES INC /NY/ (CIK 0000726603)
Date: July 27, 2005 · CIK: 0000726603 · Accession: 0000726603-05-000072
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 001-16689
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Vedder, Price, Kaufman & Kammaholz, P.C.
805 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10022
STEVEN R. BERGER
212-407-7714
sberger@vedderprice.com
July 27, 2005
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
450 Fifth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20549
Attention: Larry Spirgel, Assistant Director
O. Nicole Holden, Staff Accountant
Derek Swanson, Esq.
Re: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.
File No. 001-16689
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Ladies and Gentlemen:
On behalf of Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc. (the
"Company"), I am hereby providing the following supplement to our
previous letters, dated May 2, 2005 and June 24, 2005, to our
conference call on July 6, 2005, and to our letter, dated July 15,
2005. As we agreed, the Company is filing this response, and upon
your review and approval, the Company will then file amended and
restated periodic reports for the fiscal periods ended subsequent
to July 2003, including the quarterly period for the fiscal
quarter ended April 30, 2005.
1. The Company will amend the Certifications included as
Exhibits 31 and 32 to each of its periodic reports to comply with
the comments contained in the SEC's letter, dated April 12, 2005,
specifically referring to (a) an evaluation of disclosure controls
and procedures as of the end of the fiscal period covered by the
respective report; and (b) that there were no changes in the
Company's internal controls during such period that materially
affected or is reasonably likely to materially affect the
Company's internal controls during such fiscal period.
2. The SEC has requested that the Company modify the
disclosure contained in Item 8A of the Company's Annual Reports on
Form 10-KSB for the fiscal years ended October 31, 2003 and
October 31, 2004. The Company hereby confirms that it will amend
such disclosure when it files amended and restated Annual Reports
for its 2003 and 2004 fiscal years as follows:
ITEM 8A. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES
(a) Evaluation of the Company's Disclosure Controls
-----------------------------------------------
and Procedures. As of the end of the most recent fiscal year
--------------
covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-KSB, the Company
evaluated the effectiveness of the design and operation of
its "disclosure controls and procedures" ("Disclosure
Controls"), and its "internal controls and procedures for
financial reporting" ("Internal Controls"). This evaluation
(the "Evaluation") was done under the supervision and with
the participation of management, including Mr. Andrew Simon,
the Company's Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") and Chief
Financial Officer ("CFO"). Rules adopted by the SEC require
that in each periodic report filed pursuant to the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the "Exchange Act"), the
Company present the conclusion about the effectiveness of the
Company's Disclosure Controls and Internal Controls based on
and as of the date of the Evaluation.
Disclosure Controls are procedures that are designed
with the objective of ensuring that information required to
be disclosed in our reports filed under the Exchange Act,
such as this Annual Report, is recorded, processed,
summarized and reported within the time periods specified in
the rule and forms. Disclosure Controls are also designed
with the objective of ensuring that such information is
accumulated and communicated to the Company's management,
including the CEO and CFO, as appropriate to allow for timely
decisions regarding required disclosure. Internal Controls
are procedures which are designed with the objective of
providing reasonable assurance that (1) the Company's
transactions are properly authorized; (2) the Company's
assets are safeguarded against unauthorized or improper use;
and (3) the Company's transactions are properly recorded and
reported, all to permit the preparation of our financial
statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting
principles.
The Company's management does not expect that the
Company's Disclosure Controls or our Internal Controls will
prevent all error and all fraud. Any 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, control may become
inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of
compliance with the policies or procedure 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.
The Evaluation included a review of the controls'
objectives and design, the controls' implementation by the
Company and the effect of the controls on the information
generated for use in this Annual Report. In course of the
Evaluation, we sought to identify data errors, controls
problems or acts of fraud and to confirm that appropriate
corrective action, including process improvements, were being
undertake. This type of evaluation will be done on a
quarterly basis so that the conclusions concerning controls
effectiveness can be reported in each Quarterly Report on
Form 10-QSB and the Annual Report on Form 10-KSB. The
Company's Internal Controls are also evaluated on an ongoing
basis by the Company's finance personnel and by the Company's
independent auditors in connection with their audit and
review activities. The overall goals of these various
evaluation activities are to monitor the Company's Disclosure
Controls and Internal Controls and to make modifications as
necessary; it is the Company's intent in this regard that the
Disclosure Controls and the Internal Controls will be
maintained as dynamic systems change (including improvements
and corrections) as conditions warrant.
Among other matters, the Company sought in the
Evaluation to determine whether there were any "significant
deficiencies" or "material weaknesses" in the Company's
Internal Controls, or whether the Company had identified any
acts of fraud involving personnel who have a significant role
in the Company's Internal Controls. This information was
important both for the Evaluation generally and because items
4, 5 and 6 in the Section 302 Certification require that the
CEO and CFO disclose that information to the Board's Audit
Committee and to the Company's independent auditors and to
report on related matters in this section of the Annual
Report. In the professional auditing literature,
"significant deficiencies" are referred to as "reportable
conditions"; these are control issues that could have a
significant adverse effect on the ability to record, process,
summarize and report financial data in the financial
statements. A "material weakness" is defined in the auditing
literature as a particularly serious reportable condition
where the internal control does not reduce to a relatively
low level the risk that misstatements caused by error or
fraud may occur in amounts that would be material in relation
to the financial statements and not be detected within a
timely period by employees in the normal course of performing
their assigned functions. The Company also sought to deal
with other controls matters in the Evaluation, and in case a
problem was identified, we considered what revision,
improvement and/or correction to make in accordance with on-
going procedures.
An Evaluation was carried out under the supervision and
with the participation of the Company's management, including
the CEO and CFO, of the effectiveness of the design and
operation of our disclosure controls and procedures (as
defined in Rule 13a-15(e) or 15d-15(e) under the Exchange
Act) as of the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual
Report. Based upon that Evaluation, the Company's
management, including the CEO and CFO, had concluded at the
time of the original filing of this Annual Report that the
design and operation of these Disclosure Controls and
Internal Controls were effective as of the end of the fiscal
year covered by this Annual Report. However, based on a
subsequent evaluation in Fiscal 2005 the Company now believes
that it did not have adequate personnel and technical
resources with respect to accounting for the sale-leaseback
of the Company's headquarters in July 2003. As a result, the
gain from the sale-leaseback was originally recognized in its
entirety in the third fiscal quarter of 2003, during which
the sale-leaseback occurred. After consulting with the
Company's independent registered public accountants during
Fiscal 2005, management has concluded that such gain should
have been deferred and recognized over the ten-year term of
the lease. On May 24, 2005, the Company concluded that the
Company should restate its audited consolidated financial
statements for the fiscal years ended October 31, 2003 and
2004, and its quarterly unaudited consolidated financial
statements for the quarters ended July 31, 2003, January 31,
2004, April 30, 2004, July 31, 2004, and January 31, 2005.
Such restatements do not affect the Company's revenues from
operations for any of these periods. These restatements will
reflect the correction in the Company's accounting for the
sale-leaseback transaction. The Company's management,
including the CEO and CFO, has concluded that, as of the end
of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report, the
Company's Disclosure Controls were not effective at the end
of such fiscal year to ensure that information required to be
disclosed by the Company in reports that it files or submits
under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and
reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and
forms. The Audit Committee has directed management to devote
additional resources to Disclosure Controls, and management
is currently in the process of implementing such directive.
(b) Changes in Internal Controls. Other than changes
----------------------------
to our accounting for the sale-leaseback transactions noted
above, there was no change in the Company's Internal Controls
occurring in the Company's fourth fiscal quarter that has
materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially
affect, the Company's Internal Controls.
3. The Company will also file amended and restated
quarterly reports on Forms 10-QSB for the fiscal quarters ended
July 31, 2003, January 31, 2004, April 30, 2004, July 31, 2004,
January 31, 2005 and April 30, 2005, which include disclosures
under Part I, Item 3 identical to that disclosure described above.
If the Staff concurs with the Company's discussion contained
in this letter, the Company will proceed to amend and restate its
periodic reports for the fiscal periods ended subsequent to July
2003 in order to include the amended textual disclosures referred
to above, as well as those contained in our prior letters to the
Staff.
If you have additional questions or would like further
information, please do not hesitate to contact Andrew Simon,
President of the Company at (845) 277-8100, or the undersigned, at
(212) 407-7714. Thank you very much.
Very truly yours,
/s/STEVEN R. BERGER
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Steven R. Berger
cc: Andrew L. Simon, President
Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.
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