Statement by SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES on the announcement of the imposition of regulatory fines
Kahl am Main, March 1, 2023 – The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (“BaFin”) announced on 1 March 2023 on its website the assessment of administrative fines in the amount of 250,000 Euro each against SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG (“SINGULUS” or the “Company”) due to the failure to publish the accounting documents and the consolidated accounting documents for the business year 2020.
SINGULUS has appealed against the imposition of the administrative fines. In the opinion of the company, the imposition of the administrative fine represents an undue hardship in individual cases, which is not the purpose of Sec. 335 HGB. No decision has yet been made on the appeals lodged.
Against this background, the Company is of the opinion that the announcement of the administrative fine decisions by BaFin is prohibited for the following reasons:
1. In the opinion of the Company, the assessment of the administrative fines is unlawful. The subject matter of the disclosure obligations pursuant to Section 325 HGB is, in particular, the approved annual financial statements. These must be available to the Company in order to be disclosed. Due to the lack of an auditor’s report, the annual financial statements cannot be adopted at present. An auditor’s report does not yet exist, as KPMG AG Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft (“KPMG”), which has been commissioned to audit the annual financial statements, has not completed its work on the annual audit by this date. Thus, it is simply not possible for the Executive Board of the Company to fulfill the publicity obligation intended by the administrative fine.
2. The company has nevertheless established the publicity of the figures and thus the information of the interested public through the regular publication of quarterly reports with unaudited key financial figures.
3. The appeals lodged by the Company against the administrative fine decision have suspensive effect pursuant to Section 335a (1) sentence 2 HGB. Contrary to fundamental principles of criminal procedure, publication of the fine decisions, which are not final, would lead to a public prejudgement of the Company. Stigmatization is to be feared if the underlying fine decisions are assumed to be illegal.
4. In addition, the procedural reasons that prevented the Company from publishing the accounting and consolidated financial reporting documents are expected to be eliminated promptly by the completion of the audit procedures and the accompanying issuance of the audit certificates in question. According to the assessment of the Executive Board of the company, the publication of the accounting documents and the consolidated accounting documents will therefore take place in a timely manner. SINGULUS emphasizes that the publication of the fine decisions leads to a misleading of the legal community regarding the economic situation of the company and ultimately causes a stigmatization of SINGULUS which is not justified in the matter.
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG
The Executive Board
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES AG, Hanauer Landstraße 103,
D-63796 Kahl/Main, WKN A1681X / ISIN DE000A1681X5
Contact:
Maren Schuster, Investor Relations, Tel.: + 49 (0) 160 9609 0279
Bernhard Krause, Unternehmenssprecher, Tel.: +49 (0) 172 833 2224
E-Mail: bernhard.krause@singulus.de