Commitments and Contingent Matters

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2012

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Text Block]

Note 9 – Commitments and contingent matters

Operating leases

We have made residual value guarantees of approximately $19.9million at September 30, 2012, related to operating leases, principally for trucks and other vehicles.

Bankruptcy of Brink's Belgium

Our former cash-in-transit subsidiary in Belgium (Brink's Belgium) filed for bankruptcy in November 2010 after a restructuring plan was rejected by local union employees and was placed into bankruptcy on February 2, 2011.  We continue to operate our Global Services unit in Belgium, which provides secure transport of diamonds, jewelry, precious metals, banknotes and other commodities. 

In December 2010, the court-appointed provisional administrators of Brink's Belgium filed a claim for €20 million against a subsidiary of Brink's.  In June 2011, the Brink's subsidiary entered into a settlement agreement related to this claim.  Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the Brink's subsidiary agreed to contribute, upon the satisfaction of certain conditions, €7 million toward social payments to former Brink's Belgium employees in exchange for the bankruptcy receivers requesting withdrawal of the pending litigation and agreeing not to file additional claims. The conditions of the settlement agreement included a release from liability by affected employees, the Belgian tax authority and the Belgian social security authority.  After these conditions were satisfied, the settlement was finalized in September 2011, the request to withdraw the litigation was accepted by the court in March 2012 and the case was dismissed.  We recorded a pretax charge of €7 million (approximately $10 million) in the second quarter of 2011 related to this claim.

Other

We are involved in variousother lawsuits and claims in the ordinary course of business. We are not able to estimate the range of losses for some of these matters. We have recorded accruals for losses that are considered probable and reasonably estimable. We do not believe that the ultimate disposition of any of these matters will have a material adverse effect on our liquidity, financial position or results of operations.