Spectra Systems Corporation Settlement of lawsuit and termination of agreement (1024K)
20 June 2014 - 4:00PM
UK Regulatory
TIDMSPSY TIDMSPSC TIDMSPSY
RNS Number : 1024K
Spectra Systems Corporation
20 June 2014
June 20, 2014
Spectra Systems Corporation
("The Company" or "Spectra")
Spectra Systems Settles Lawsuit and Terminates Business
Agreement
Spectra has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by one of its
shareholders and business partners and terminate the related
royalty agreement for sales of certain banknote authentication
materials.
The suit was filed on 13 February 2013 for damages totalling
$2,136,091 to cover the period from 2004 to 2010. This amount was
subsequently reduced to $1,272,397 due to enforcement of the
statute of limitations, which bars claims that accrued more than
six years prior to the filing of the lawsuit.
The Board is pleased to have reached a settlement which
terminates the agreement and liabilities that would otherwise have
continued through the remaining multi-year agreement, and settles
the pending litigation and avoids further significant legal costs.
The settlement was reached at a cost to Spectra of approximately
$2.1MM.
The settlement will result in a one-time, exceptional charge to
the Company's profits in 2013 of $1.8MM after offsetting accruals
already made in respect of the period from 2006 - 2012. This
appears as an exceptional item expense in its statement of income
and as an increase to the accrual on its balance sheet and
statement of cash flow, net of an estimated tax benefit of
$700,000. This exceptional charge will be accounted for in
Spectra's accounts for the year ended 31 December 2013, the
preliminary statement of which was released on 30 April 2014.
It is anticipated that the Annual Report and Accounts will be
circulated to shareholders of Spectra Systems Corporation on 24
June.
The Board's decision to accept this settlement was based on the
legal advice that Spectra had a very high probability of success
for the period from 2004 to 2013 and a likely, but less certain,
probability of success for the remainder of the contract.
The amount which would have been owed, based on the highly
probable outcome that we would prevail for the 2004 to 2013 period,
would have been approximately $800,000. This, along with the
estimated legal fees through trial of $500,000 would have resulted
in a cost to Spectra of approximately $1.3MM.
The analysis for the less certain outcome relating to the future
contract years based on the historical levels of authentication
materials shipment before 2012 could have resulted in approximately
$1.6MM of estimated contract payments for the future years
remaining on the agreement and could have been much higher if the
order volumes in the future years are in excess of these levels.
The estimated potential cost of the base case for the future
contract years, along with the successful outcome for the previous
years, plus legal fees, could have resulted in $2.9MM of costs to
the Company.
Based on the analysis described, the Board concluded that the
settlement of approximately $2.1MM, with a termination of the
agreement, is the correct business decision and will result in
significant savings for Spectra.
Enquiries:
Spectra Systems Corporation
Dr. Nabil Lawandy, Chief Executive Officer Tel: +1 (0) 401 274
4700
WH Ireland Limited
Chris Fielding (Head of Corporate Finance) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7220
1650
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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