Company: XXII
Filing Date: 2025-06-10
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001641172-25-014543
Chunk: 80

Company: 22nd Century Group, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-06-10
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 80
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 a matter of good corporate governance practice. If our stockholders do not ratify the selection, our Audit Committee may reconsider whether to retain Freed, but still may retain the firm. Even if the selection is ratified, our Audit Committee, in its discretion, may change the appointment at any time during the year if it determines that such a change would be in the best interests of us and our stockholders.

Representatives of Freed are expected to attend the Annual Meeting, where they will be available to respond to appropriate questions and, if they desire, to make a statement.

The Audit Committee, in accordance with its charter, must pre-approve all non-audit services provided by our independent registered public accountants. The Audit Committee generally pre-approves specified series in the defined categories of audit services, audit related services and tax services up to specified amounts. Pre-approval may also be given as part of our Audit Committee’s approval of the scope of the engagement of the independent registered public accountants or on an individual, explicit case-by-case basis before the independent auditor is engaged to provide each service.

The Audit Committee has considered whether the provision of the services not related to the audit of the financial statements acknowledged in the table below was compatible with maintaining the independence of Freed and is of the opinion that the provision of these services was compatible with maintaining Freed’s independence.

The following table shows the fees billed to us for the audits and other services provided by for the fiscal years ended December 31, 2024 and 2023, respectively.

|                    |     |   |    2024 |     |   |    2023 |
|:-------------------|:----|:--|--------:|:----|:--|--------:|
| Audit fees         |     | $ | 299,055 |     | $ | 570,000 |
| Audit-related fees |     |   |       — |     |   |       — |
| Tax fees           |     |   |       — |     |   |       — |
| All other fees     |     |   |       — |     |   |       — |
|                    |     | $ | 299,055 |     | $ | 570,000 |

Audit Fees consist of the aggregate fees billed for professional services rendered for the audit of our consolidated annual financial statements and the quarterly reviews of financial statements and for any other services that are normally provided by our independent registered public accountants in connection with our statutory and regulatory filings or engagements.

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