Legal Proceedings

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Legal Proceedings

Legal Proceedings

The Company and its subsidiaries are from time to time involved in various lawsuits, claims, investigations and proceedings which may include commercial, employment, tax, customs and trade, customer, vendor, personal injury, creditors rights and health and safety law matters, which are handled and defended in the ordinary course of business. In addition, the Company is from time to time subjected to various assertions, claims, proceedings and requests for damages and/or indemnification concerning sales channel practices and intellectual property matters, including patent infringement suits involving technologies that are incorporated in a broad spectrum of products the Company sells or that are incorporated in the Company’s e-commerce sales channels, as well as trademark/copyright infringement claims.  The Company is also audited by (or has initiated voluntary disclosure agreements with) various U.S. Federal and state authorities, as well as Canadian authorities, concerning potential income tax, sales tax and/or "unclaimed property" liabilities.  These matters are in various stages of investigation, negotiation and/or litigation.   The Company's NATG subsidiaries are also being audited by an entity representing 27 states seeking recovery of “unclaimed property” and has received separate demands from 19 states requesting payments of their claimed amounts.  The Company has complied with the unclaimed property audit, has provided requested information and has corresponded with the states regarding possible further discussions. The Company intends to vigorously defend these matters and believes it has strong defenses.

Although the Company does not expect, based on currently available information, that the outcome in any of these matters, individually or collectively, will have a material adverse effect on its financial position or results of operations, the ultimate outcome is inherently unpredictable.  Therefore, judgments could be rendered or settlements entered, that could adversely affect the Company’s operating results or cash flows in a particular period.  The Company regularly assesses all of its litigation and threatened litigation as to the probability of ultimately incurring a liability and records its best estimate of the ultimate loss in situations where it assesses the likelihood of loss as probable and estimable.  In this regard, the Company establishes accrual estimates for its various lawsuits, claims, investigations and proceedings when it is probable that an asset has been impaired or a liability incurred at the date of the financial statements and the loss can be reasonably estimated. At March 31, 2021 the Company has established accruals for certain of its various lawsuits, claims, investigations and proceedings based upon estimates of the most likely outcome in a range of loss or the minimum amounts in a range of loss if no amount within a range is a more likely estimate.  The Company does not believe that at March 31, 2021 any reasonably possible losses in excess of the amounts accrued would be material to the financial statements.