Company: FWRG
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001789940-25-000031
Chunk: 20

Company: First Watch Restaurant Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-04-08
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 20
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 the design and operating effectiveness of the redesigned and enhanced controls, we concluded the controls have been in place and have operated effectively for a sufficient period of time to demonstrate that the material weakness related to information technology general controls for information systems and applications that are relevant to the preparation of the consolidated financial statements has been remediated as of December 31, 2023 and the material weakness related to accounting for income taxes has been remediated as of December 29, 2024.

Further, we are progressing towards, and continue to devote substantial resources to, the remediation of our remaining material weaknesses. To date, as part of our remediation efforts, we have undertaken the following measures:

• hired new and reassigned existing financial reporting, accounting, and information technology leadership with public company experience to enhance public company financial reporting, technical accounting, and information technology services and solutions;

• augmented financial reporting capabilities by staffing professionals with knowledge and experience in income tax, internal audit, information technology, and legal;

• established various policies, including a formal delegation of authority policy defining the protocols for reviewing and authorizing commitments, contracts, invoices, and transactions as well as an account reconciliation policy that provides the framework to ensure the performance of consistent procedures in reconciling general ledger balances to supporting documentation;

• formalized certain roles and reviewed responsibilities, including ensuring appropriate segregation of duties;

• designed and implemented period-end financial reporting controls, such as controls over the preparation and review of account reconciliations, financial statement disclosures, and the consolidated financial statements, including controls around classification of cash flows and disclosure of noncash items, as well as establishing a

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formal management Disclosure Committee to review the draft financial statements and disclosures prior to release, including a sub-certification process from various functional groups; and

• enhanced access restrictions for certain users over general ledger journal entries and designed new processes to further automate journal entries and segregate journal entry creation from journal entry approval authority.

#### Insider Trading Policy
We have adoptedan insider trading policy (“Insider Trading Policy”) that governs the purchase, sale and other dispositions of our securities by directors, officers, employees, and certain family members of such persons, anyone else living in the household of such persons, and entities or accounts that are under the influence or control or are a beneficiary of such persons. Our Insider Trading Policy is designed to promote compliance with insider trading laws, rules and regulations, and the Nasdaq listing standards. The full text of our Insider Trading Policy was filed as Exhibit 19