Contingencies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2013

Contingencies

Contingencies

Note 2 — Contingencies

The Company is involved from time to time in disputes and other litigation in the ordinary course of business and may encounter other contingencies, which may include environmental and other matters. The Company presently has no matters other than the environmental remediation accrual described below.

In December 2008, the Company sold property it owned in Bridgeport, Connecticut to B&E Juices, Inc. for $2.5 million, of which $2.0 million is secured by a mortgage on the property.  The property consists of approximately four acres of land and 48,000 sq. feet of warehouse space.  The property was the site of the Company’s original scissor factory which opened in 1887 and was closed in 1996.

Under the terms of the sale agreement, and as required by the Connecticut Transfer Act, the Company is required to remediate any environmental contamination on the property. During 2008, the Company hired an independent environmental consulting firm to conduct environmental studies in order to identify the extent of the environmental contamination on the property and to develop a remediation plan. As a result of those studies and the estimates prepared by the independent environmental consulting firm, the Company recorded an undiscounted liability of approximately $1.8 million related to the remediation of the property. This accrual includes the costs of required investigation, remedial activities, and post-remediation operating and maintenance.

The remediation work, which began in the third quarter of 2009, was completed during the third quarter of 2012.  The Company, with the assistance of its independent environmental consulting firm, must continue to monitor contaminant levels on the property to ensure they comply with set governmental standards. The Company expects that the monitoring period could last a minimum of two years.   At March 31, 2013, the Company had approximately $102,000 remaining in its accrual for post-remediation monitoring and project closing costs, of which approximately $43,000 was classified as a current liability at that date.

The change in the accrual for environmental remediation for the three months ended March 31, 2013 follows (in thousands):

Balance at December 31, 2012	Payments	Balance at March 31, 2013
$  124	$  (22)	$  102

Also, as part of the sale, the Company provided the buyer with a mortgage loan of $2.0 million at six percent interest. The mortgage is payable in monthly installments of principal and interest with the remaining outstanding balance due in full, one year after remediation  and monitoring on the property have been completed.