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5. COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES
6 Months Ended
Feb. 28, 2015
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]  
COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

Employment Agreement

On August 22, 2013, the Company entered into an employment agreement with its President/Chief Executive Officer that expired in August 2014. The employment agreement provided for an annual base salary of $300,000 per year, and a performance bonus in an amount equal to 5% of the Company’s net income before taxes of the previous fiscal year, not to exceed $60,000. The agreement also provided Employee stock options, exercisable for five years, to purchase ten (10) shares of Common Stock for each one thousand dollars ($1,000) of net income before taxes at the end of each fiscal year up to a maximum of 20,000 options over the term of the agreement. The Company may terminate the agreement upon 30 days written notice if termination is without cause. The Company's only obligation would be to pay its President the greater of a) 12 months’ salary or b) the remainder of the term of the employment agreement from the date of notice of termination. A copy of the agreement is attached to the Company’s 2013 Form 10-K filed with the SEC on November 18, 2013 as Exhibit 10.9.

  

For fiscal year 2013, the Compensation Committee awarded a $30,000 performance bonus to Walter Woltosz, our President/Chief Executive Officer, which was paid in September 2013.

 

Effective September 1, 2014, the Company entered into a new Employment Agreement with Walter S. Woltosz to serve as Chief Executive Officer of the Company (the “Woltosz Employment Agreement”). The Woltosz Employment Agreement has a one-year term. Under the terms of the Woltosz Employment Agreement, Mr. Woltosz is required to devote a minimum of 60% of his productive time to the position of Chief Executive Officer of the Company. He will receive annual compensation of $180,000, be eligible to receive up to 12,000 Company stock options under the 2007 Simulations Plus, Inc. Stock Option Plan, as determined by the Company’s Board of Directors, and shall be paid an annual performance bonus of up to 5% of the Company’s net income before taxes, not to exceed $36,000. A copy of the Woltosz Employment Agreement was filed as an attachment to the 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 4, 2014.

 

On September 2, 2014, Thaddeus H. Grasela, Jr., Ph.D., was appointed President of the Company and its wholly-owned subsidiary Cognigen, and the Company and Cognigen have entered into an Employment Agreement with Dr. Grasela (the “Grasela Employment Agreement”) which has a three-year term. Pursuant to the Grasela Employment Agreement, Dr. Grasela will receive an annual base salary of $250,000, will be eligible to receive Company stock options under the 2007 Simulations Plus, Inc. Stock Option Plan, as determined by the Company’s Board of Directors, and will be eligible to receive an annual performance bonus in an amount not to exceed 10% of salary to be determined by the Compensation Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors.

 

License Agreement

We have a royalty agreement with Accelrys, Inc. (the original agreement was entered into with Symyx Technologies in March 2010; Symyx Technologies later merged with Accelrys, Inc.) for access to their Metabolite Database for developing our Metabolite Module within ADMET Predictor™. The module was renamed the Metabolism Module when we released ADMET Predictor version 6 on April 19, 2012. Under this agreement, we pay 25% of revenue derived from the sale of Metabolism/Metabolite module to Accelrys. In 2014, Dassault Systemes of France acquired Accelrys and the company now operates under the name Biovia.

 

For the Six months ended February 28, 2015 and 2014 we incurred royalty expense of $34,989 and $364,369, respectively and for the three months ended February 28, 2015 and 2014, we incurred royalty expense of approximately $24,824 and $198,837, respectively.

 

Litigation

Except as described below, we are not a party to any legal proceedings and are not aware of pending legal proceedings of any kind.

In June 2014, the Company was served with a complaint in a civil action entitled Sherri Winslow v. Incredible Adventures, Inc., et al. (Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. BC545789) alleging wrongful death and seeking unspecified damages arising out of a May 18, 2012 plane crash in the State of Nevada.  The Company’s Chief Executive Officer owns the subject aircraft and is also a named defendant. The complaint alleged that the Company was the owner of the subject aircraft.   The Company denies all material allegations against it, including that it owns or has ever owned any interest in the subject aircraft. On November 25, 2014, the plaintiff and the Company signed a stipulation of dismissal pursuant to which the plaintiff agreed to dismiss the Company without prejudice.  If the plaintiff does not discover evidence during a nine month period to and including August 31, 2015 that justifies bringing the Company back into the litigation, the Company will prepare a dismissal with prejudice to be signed on behalf of the plaintiff.