
19.	COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

Guarantees

Verint provides certain customers in the ordinary course of business with financial performance guarantees, which in certain cases are generally backed by standby letters of credit or surety bonds, certain of which are cash collateralized and accounted for as restricted cash and bank time deposits. Verint is only liable for the amounts of those guarantees in the event of its nonperformance, which would permit the customer to exercise the guarantee. As of October 31, 2012 and October 31, 2011, Verint believes that it was in compliance with its performance obligations under all contracts for which there is a financial performance guarantee, and that any liabilities arising in connection with these guarantees will not have a material adverse effect on its consolidated results of operations, financial position or cash flows. Verint also obtained bank guarantees primarily to provide customer assurance relating to the performance of certain obligations required by customer agreements for the guarantee of certain payment obligations. These guarantees, which aggregated $37.3 million and $41.2 million as of October 31, 2012 and January 31, 2012, respectively, are generally scheduled to be released upon Verint's performance of specified contracts milestones, a majority of which are scheduled to be completed at various dates through January 31, 2013.

Litigation Overview

Except as disclosed below, the Company does not believe that it is currently party to any other claims, assessments or pending legal action that could reasonably be expected to have a material adverse effect on its business, financial condition or results of operations.

Proceedings Related to CTI’s Special Committee Investigations

Overview

On March 14, 2006, CTI announced the creation of a Special Committee of its Board of Directors (the “Special Committee”) composed of outside directors to review CTI’s historic stock option grant practices and related accounting matters, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of the stated dates of option grants and whether all proper corporate procedures were followed. In November 2006, the Special Committee’s investigation was expanded to other financial and accounting matters, including the recognition of revenue related to certain contracts, errors in the recording of certain deferred tax accounts, the misclassification of certain expenses, the misuse of accounting reserves and the misstatement of backlog. The Special Committee issued its report on January 28, 2008. Following the commencement of the Special Committee’s investigation, CTI, certain of its subsidiaries and some of CTI’s former directors and officers were named as defendants in several class and derivative actions, and CTI commenced direct actions against certain of its former officers and directors.

Beginning on or about April 19, 2006, class action lawsuits were filed by persons identifying themselves as CTI shareholders, purportedly on behalf of a class of CTI’s shareholders who purchased its publicly-traded securities. The actions were later consolidated and adjudicated at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The complaint named CTI and certain of its former officers and directors as defendants and alleged, among other things, violations of Sections 10(b) and 14(a) of the Exchange Act, Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder and Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act in connection with prior statements made by CTI with respect to, among other things, its accounting treatment of stock options. The action sought compensatory damages in an unspecified amount.

The parties to this action entered into a settlement agreement on December 16, 2009, which was amended on June 19, 2010 and approved by the court in which such action was pending on June 23, 2010. Under the settlement agreement, CTI paid the plaintiffs $160.2 million of which $82.5 million was paid through the issuance of 12,462,236 CTI common shares and the remainder was paid in cash.

Israeli Optionholder Class Actions

CTI and certain of its subsidiaries were named as defendants in four potential class action litigations in the State of Israel involving claims to recover damages incurred as a result of purported negligence or breach of contract that allegedly prevented certain current or former employees from exercising certain stock options. The Company intends to vigorously defend these actions.

Two cases were filed in the Tel Aviv District Court against CTI on March 26, 2009, by plaintiffs Katriel (a former Comverse Ltd. employee) and Deutsch (a former Verint Systems Ltd. employee). The Katriel case (Case Number 1334/09) and the Deutsch case (Case Number 1335/09) both seek to approve class actions to recover damages that are claimed to have been incurred as a result of CTI’s negligence in reporting and filing its financial statements, which allegedly prevented the exercise of certain stock options by certain employees and former employees. By stipulation of the parties, on September 30, 2009, the court ordered that these cases, including all claims against CTI in Israel and the motion to approve the class action, be stayed until resolution of the actions pending in the United States regarding stock option accounting, without prejudice to the parties’ ability to investigate and assert the unique facts, claims and defenses in these cases. On April 4, 2012, plaintiffs filed a motion to lift the stay based on the resolution of the actions in the United States. On May 7, 2012, the court lifted the stay, and the plaintiffs have filed an amended complaint and motion to certify a class of plaintiffs in a single consolidated class action. Defendants filed their responses on November 11, 2012 and the parties are awaiting for the court to set a further case schedule.

Separately, on July 13, 2012, plaintiffs filed a motion seeking an order that CTI hold back $150 million in assets as a reserve to satisfy any potential damage awards that may be awarded in this case, but did not seek to enjoin the Share Distribution. The Company does not believe that the motion has merit. On July 25, 2012, the court ordered that it will not rule on the motion until after it rules on plaintiffs' motion to certify a class of plaintiffs. On August 16, 2012, plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to appeal the court's order to the Israeli Supreme Court. The parties are awaiting a decision.

Two cases were also filed in the Tel Aviv Labor Court by plaintiffs Katriel and Deutsch, and both seek to approve class actions to recover damages that are claimed to have been incurred as a result of breached employment contracts, which allegedly prevented the exercise by certain employees and former employees of certain CTI and Verint Systems stock options, respectively. The Katriel litigation (Case Number 3444/09) was filed on March 16, 2009, against Comverse Ltd., and the Deutsch litigation (Case Number 4186/09) was filed on March 26, 2009, against Verint Systems Ltd. The Tel Aviv Labor Court has ruled that it lacks jurisdiction, and both cases have been transferred to the Tel Aviv District Court. These cases have been consolidated with the Tel Aviv District Court cases discussed above. The Company did not accrue for these matters as the potential loss is currently not probable or estimable.

Additional cases have been filed by individual plaintiffs similarly seeking to recover damages up to an aggregate of $3.5 million allegedly incurred as a result of the inability to exercise certain stock options. The cases generally allege the same causes of actions alleged in the potential class action discussed above. The Company did not accrue for these matters as the potential loss is currently not probable or estimable.

Other Legal Proceedings

In addition to the litigation discussed above, the Company is, and in the future, may be involved in, various other lawsuits, claims and proceedings incident to the ordinary course of business. The results of litigation are inherently unpredictable. Any claims against the Company, whether meritorious or not, could be time consuming, result in costly litigation, require significant amounts of management time and result in diversion of significant resources. The results of these lawsuits, claims and proceedings cannot be predicted with certainty. However, the Company believes that the ultimate resolution of these current matters will not have a material adverse effect on its condensed consolidated financial statements taken as a whole.

Indemnifications

In the normal course of business, we provide indemnifications of varying scopes to customers against claims of intellectual property infringement made by third parties arising from the use of our products. Historically, costs related to these indemnification provisions have not been significant and we are unable to estimate the maximum potential impact of these indemnification provisions on our future results of operations.

To the extent permitted under state laws or other applicable laws, the Company has agreements in which it agreed to indemnify its directors and officers for certain events or occurrences while the director or officer is, or was, serving at the Company’s request in such capacity. The indemnification period covers all pertinent events and occurrences during the Company’s director’s or officer’s lifetime. The maximum potential amount of future payments that the Company could be required to make under these indemnification agreements is unlimited; however, the Company has certain director and officer insurance coverage that limits the Company’s exposure and enables the Company to recover a portion of any future amounts paid. The Company is not able to estimate the fair value of these indemnification agreements in excess of applicable insurance coverage, if any.