Company: GDHLF
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001410578-25-000935
Chunk: 142

Company: GDS Holdings Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-28
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 142
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 offering, we have incurred significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, as well as rules subsequently implemented by the SEC and Nasdaq, impose various requirements on the corporate governance practices of public companies. Since December 31, 2018, we have been deemed to be a “large accelerated filer” as the term is defined in Rule 12b-2 of the U. S. Exchange Act, and we thereby ceased to be an “emerging growth company” as the term is defined in the JOBS Act.

These rules and regulations have increased our legal and financial compliance costs and made some corporate activities more time-consuming and costly. Since we have ceased to be an “emerging growth company,” we expect to incur significant expenses and devote substantial management effort toward ensuring compliance with the requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the other rules and regulations of the SEC. Operating as a public company has also made it more difficult and more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced policy limits and coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain the same or similar coverage. In addition, we have incurred additional costs associated with our public company reporting requirements. It may also be more difficult for us to find qualified persons to serve on our board of directors or as executive officers. We will also incur additional costs as a result of the listing of our ordinary shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. We are currently evaluating and monitoring developments with respect to these rules and regulations, and we cannot predict or estimate with any degree of certainty the amount of additional costs we may incur or the timing of such costs.

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Shareholders of our company have in the past brought, and may in the future bring, securities class action lawsuits against our company following periods of instability in the market price of our ADSs and/or ordinary shares. Our company was named as a defendant in a putative class action lawsuit currently pending in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. See “ Item 4. Information on the Company - B. Business Overview - Legal Proceedings.” Any further class action lawsuit could divert a significant amount of our management’s attention and other resources from our business and operations, which could harm our results of operations and require us to incur significant expenses to defend the suit. Any such class action lawsuit, whether or not successful, could harm our reputation and restrict our ability to raise capital in