NOTE 16 – COVID-19

The Company faces various risks related to the global outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”).

The Engineering Services Business is dependent on its workforce to deliver its products and services primarily to the U.S. and U.K. Governments. If significant portions of the Engineering Services Business’s workforce are unable to work effectively, or if the U.S. or UK. Government and/or other customers’ operations are curtailed due to illness, quarantines, government actions, facility closures, or other restrictions in connection with the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Engineering Services Business’s operations is likely be severely impacted. The Engineering Services Business may be unable to perform fully on its contracts and costs may increase as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. These cost increases may not be fully recoverable either from our customers or under existing insurance policies. At this time, the Company’s management cannot predict with any precision the full extent of the impact which COVID-19 Pandemic will have on the Company, but management continues to mitigate where it can and monitor the situation, to assess further possible implications to operations, the supply chain, and customers, and to take actions in an effort to mitigate adverse consequences.

Additionally, the Company is subject to flow downs from prime defense contractors under Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”). Recent flow-down entailed Executive Order 14042 which mandates the vaccination of all staff. We may not be able to enforce mandatory vaccination resulting in losing key staff members, thus impacting on our ability to provide contractual engineering services.

Further, the Pandemic may continue to affect the Company’s results of operation, financial position, and liquidity.

The Marine Technology Business is dependent on its workforce and/or distributors/resellers to sell and deliver its products and services. Developments such as social distancing, shelter -in- place directives and travel restrictions introduced by governments have impacted the Marine Products Business’s ability to deploy its workforce effectively. These same developments may affect the operations of the Company’s suppliers, Customers and distributors/resellers, as their own workforces and operations are disrupted by efforts to curtail the spread of this virus. The Company, being a manufacturing company, in large part is unable to work remotely. The Company’s activities are performed in certain international locations that are also impacted by the COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, it is critical for the Marine Technology Business to have in-person engagement with customers for the demonstration of its products from a vessel at sea. The restriction on global travel has resulted in significantly less customer engagement which affects the demand for its goods and services. These disruptions have negatively impacted the Marine Technology Business’s sales, its ongoing development projects, ability to build meaningful pipeline of opportunities and its results of operations in the 2021 FY.

A new variant of the coronavirus, Omicron, is emerging and governments are considering various forms of restriction including both on domestic and international travel. If there are further curtailments on our business including restriction on travel and potentially work from home policy (we are a manufacturing business), this will severely impact on our business and is likely to reduce significantly demand for our goods and services.