Company: APM
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001213900-25-037669
Chunk: 80

Company: Aptorum Group Ltd
Filing Date: 2025-04-30
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 3
Chunk 80
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ounced the adoption of interim final amendments to implement the submission and disclosure requirements of the HFCA Act. In the announcement,
the SEC clarifies that before any issuer will have to comply with the interim final amendments, the SEC must implement a process for identifying
covered issuers. The announcement also states that the SEC staff is actively assessing how best to implement the other requirements of
the HFCA Act, including the identification process and the trading prohibition requirements.

On June 22, 2021, the U. S.
Senate passed the AHFCAA, which, if signed into law, would amend the HFCA Act and require the SEC to prohibit an issuer’s securities
from trading on any U. S. stock exchanges if its auditor is not subject to the PCAOB inspections for two consecutive years instead of three
consecutive years.

On September 22, 2021, the
PCAOB adopted a final rule implementing the HFCA Act, which provides a framework for the PCAOB to use when determining, as contemplated
under the HFCA Act, whether the board of directors of a company is unable to inspect or investigate completely registered public accounting
firms located in a foreign jurisdiction because of a position taken by one or more authorities in that jurisdiction.

On December 2, 2021, the SEC
adopted amendments to finalize rules implementing the submission and disclosure requirements in the HFCA Act.

On December 16, 2021, the
PCAOB issued a report on its determinations that it is unable to inspect or investigate completely PCAOB-registered public accounting
firms headquartered in mainland China and in Hong Kong because of positions taken by PRC and Hong Kong authorities in those jurisdictions.

On December 29, 2022, the
Consolidated Appropriations Act was signed into law by President Biden. The Consolidated Appropriations Act contained, among other things,
an identical provision to AHFCAA, which reduce the number of consecutive non-inspection years required for triggering the prohibitions
under the HFCA Act from three years to two.

The lack of access to the
PCAOB inspection in China prevents the PCAOB from fully evaluating audits and quality control procedures of the auditors based in China.
As a result, investors may be deprived of the benefits of such PCAOB inspections. The inability of the PCAOB to conduct inspections of
auditors in China makes it more difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of these accounting firm’s audit procedures or quality control
procedures as compared to auditors outside of