Washington, DC 3/18/14—Bio-Rad Laboratories reported in its annual 10K SEC filing for 2013 that it has identified a material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting. This follows the company’s identification of other material weaknesses in internal controls in 2011 and 2012 (see IBO 4/30/13). In its latest 10K filing, the company stated, “we identified a material weakness in the design of monitoring controls over operations at certain of our locations both within the United States and overseas, as well as a lack of documentation required to operate these controls appropriately.” The company added, “we determined that the precision at which our controls are designed and documented, and the completeness and timeliness of communication between some of our locations are not sufficient to detect and correct a material misstatement in our consolidated financial statements.” As an example, the company stated, “we identified certain immaterial errors requiring adjustment to prior years and quarters related to the valuation of finished goods inventory in our Life Science segment.” In addition, in the fourth quarter 2013, the company’s accountant identified immaterial financial adjustments pertaining to a Japanese pension liability. The company has begun remediation of the deficiencies in these cases and is developing a remediation plan to address the material weakness in its internal control over financial reporting. The company also announced that it increased its accrual to $35.0 million for its initial efforts related to the US Department of Justice and SEC’s investigation of the company in connection with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (see IBO 5/15/10).