SEC Company Response from TIDEL TECHNOLOGIES INC (CIK 0000842695) — Nov 28, 2005
TIDEL TECHNOLOGIES INC (CIK 0000842695)
Date: Nov. 28, 2005 · CIK: 0000842695 · Accession: 0001140361-05-010206
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CORRESP
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Tidel Technologies Inc. Corresp 11-23-2005
[Letterhead
of Olshan Grundman Frome Rosenzweig & Wolosky LLP]
November
23, 2005
VIA
EDGAR AND FAX
United
States Securities and Exchange Commission
100
F
Street N.E.
Washington,
D.C. 20549
Division
Of Corporation Finance
Mail Stop
4561
Attention:
Assistant Director Barbara C. Jacobs
Re:
Tidel
Technologies, Inc.
Preliminary
Proxy Statement on Schedule 14A
Originally
filed on October 28, 2005
Form
10-K for the years ended 2004 and 2003
Forms
10-Q for the periods ended December 31, 2004,
March
31 and June 30, 2005
Dear
Assistant Director Jacobs:
We
acknowledge receipt of your comment letter dated today, November 23, 2005 (the
“Comment Letter”) with regard to the above-referenced matter. We have reviewed
the Comment Letter with Tidel Technologies, Inc. (the “Company”) and provide the
following response on its behalf. Capitalized terms used herein and not
separately defined have the meanings given to them in the Preliminary Schedule
14A.
We
note
your reminder that all correspondence with the Staff must be filed via
EDGAR.
In
response to you first comment, we attach as Annex I hereto revised internal
controls language for the Company’s 2003/2004 Form 10-K. If you consider the
attached revised language responsive, the Company will wish to file an amended
2003/04 Form 10-K and Forms 10-Q for the last three quarters on Friday, November
25 (or as soon as practicable thereafter) containing this language. Thank you
for your assistance with is matter.
Sincerely,
/s/
Adam W. Finerman
cc:
Mark
K. Levinick
Robert
D.
Peltier
ITEM
9A.
CONTROLS
AND PROCEDURES
(a)
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
Mark
K.
Levenick, our Interim Chief Executive Officer, and Robert D. Peltier, our
Interim Chief Financial Officer, have evaluated the effectiveness of the design
and operation of our “disclosure controls and procedures”, as such term is
defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) promulgated under the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). James T. Rash was Chief
Executive and Chief Financial Officer during the fiscal years ended 2002, 2003
and 2004. Mr. Rash died on December 19, 2004. Mr. Levenick was appointed Interim
Chief Executive Officer on December 22, 2004. During fiscal years 2002, 2003
and
2004, Mr. Levenick served as Chief Operating Officer and Director of the
Company, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Tidel Engineering, L.P.,
the Company’s principal operating subsidiary. In February 2005, Mr. Robert D.
Peltier joined the Company as Interim Chief Financial Officer, having had no
prior affiliation with the Company. Mr. Peltier began his assessment of
disclosure controls and internal controls without having ever been in a position
of active management or knowledge over transactions during fiscal years 2002,
2003 or 2004.
In
conducting our evaluation of disclosure controls and procedures, our Chief
Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer made inquiries with
accounting, administrative and operational personnel and reviewed the historical
facts, including the Company’s failure to file its periodic reports on a timely
basis. Our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer noted that
the Company had failed to file any periodic report required to be filed under
the Exchange Act from September 30, 2002 to February 1, 2005, on which date
we
filed our Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2002, which was
more
than two years late. Furthermore, it was noted that this Form 10-K for the
fiscal years ended September 2003 and 2004, and the Company’s Forms 10-Q for the
quarterly periods ended December 31, 2004 and March 31, 2005 were filed on
August 1, 2005, were each at least several months delinquent. In their
evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer noted
that the Company’s periodic reporting failure was caused by (1) limited
financial and personnel resources at the times such forms were due that
restricted our ability to compile our financial statements and cause such
statements to be reviewed and/or audited by an independent registered public
accounting firm when such forms were due and (2) the prolonged illness and
death
of our former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer
during the year ended December 31, 2004. Based on that evaluation, our Chief
Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that the Company had
a
significant deficiency in its disclosure controls and procedures related to
timely periodic reporting and such controls and procedures were not effective
as
of the end of the years ended September 30, 2003 and 2004.
In
February 2005, in order to remedy this deficiency the Company began implementing
new disclosure controls and procedures, which consisted of: (1) the hiring
of a
new Chief Financial Officer to oversee the Company’s financial reporting
process, (2) the establishment of a reporting timetable to file all delinquent
reports by August 1, 2005 and return to timely periodic reporting by August
19,
2005, which was submitted and approved by our Board of Directors and (3) the
establishment of new guidelines for completion of periodic accounting and
reporting tasks. Such implementation was completed by August 19, 2005, at which
time we resumed the timely filing of our periodic reports. As of August 19,
2005, our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer believe that
this significant deficiency has been remedied.
In
addition, in a report to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the
Company dated July 28, 2005, the Company’s independent registered public
accountants noted that the following significant deficiencies in our internal
controls and procedures were discovered during the course of their audit: (1)
established credit policies were overridden on occasion by executive management
based on their business judgment at that time, (2) bookkeeping at the corporate
level was not administrated on a timely basis during 2003 and 2004 and (3)
the
Company’s accounts payable supervisor had access to the check signature and the
ability to prepare check runs without proper review prior to distribution.
In
examining the significant deficiencies, both the Company and our independent
registered public accountants performed expanded reviews of our procedures
and
mitigating controls to determine whether such deficiencies constituted a
material weakness. In the expanded reviews, both the Company and our independent
registered public accountants noted the following controls were in place prior
to the audit of our financial statements for the fiscal years ended September
30, 2003 and 2004: (1) Management of the Company consistently performed weekly
and monthly reviews of actual and budgeted results during the periods, (2)
the
Audit Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company provided additional
oversight with respect to financial reporting beginning immediately after the
death of our Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer in December 2004,
and
(3) the Company hired a new Chief Financial Officer in February 2005 to oversee
the Company’s financial reporting process. We collectively concluded that
since such additional controls
were in place the Company was able to
conclude effective such that none of the
deficiencies constituted a material weakness that resulted in more than a remote
likelihood that a material misstatement of the annual or interim financial
statements would not be prevented or detected. Further, the report of the
independent registered public accountants indicated no inappropriate or
unauthorized activity during the periods reviewed.
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In
August
2005, the Company began implementing revised internal controls and procedures
to
correct the significant deficiencies in our internal controls and procedures
noted by our independent registered public accountants, which consisted of:
(1)
the establishment of new credit approval policies, including Board-level
approval for certain amounts, (2) the establishment new guidelines for timely
administration of bookkeeping tasks at the corporate level, including the
implementation of monthly, quarterly and annual closing schedules and (3)
removal of check signature access from the Company’s accounts payable
supervisor. Such implementation was completed by August 30, 2005, and as of
that
date our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer believe that
these significant internal controls and procedures deficiencies no longer
exist.
A
significant deficiency is a control deficiency, or a combination of control
deficiencies, that adversely affect the entity’s ability to authorize, initiate,
record, process or report external financial data reliably in accordance with
generally accepted accounting principles in the United States such that there
is
more than a remote likelihood that a misstatement of the entity’s annual or
interim financial statements that is more than inconsequential will not be
prevented or detected.
A
material weakness is a significant deficiency, or a combination of significant
deficiencies, that results in more than a remote likelihood that a material
misstatement of the annual or interim financial statements will not be prevented
or detected.
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 on all control systems,
no
evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all errors, control
issues and instances of fraud, if any, with a company have been detected. The
design of any system of controls is also based in part on certain assumptions
regarding 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. Therefore, even those systems determined to be effective can provide
only reasonable assurance with respect to financial statement preparation and
presentation. Our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer have
concluded that the Company’s disclosure controls and procedures are effective at
this reasonable assurance level as of August 19, 2005.
(b)
Changes in internal control over financial reporting
Following
the evaluations discussed above and the identification of significant
deficiencies, the Company took the actions and implemented the procedures
described above. There were no changes in our internal control over financial
reporting that occurred in the quarter ending September 30, 2004 that have
materially affected, or are reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal
control over financial reporting.
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