Legal Proceedings

The Company and its subsidiaries from time to time are involved in various lawsuits, claims, investigations and proceedings including commercial, employment, consumer, real estate, personal injury and health and safety law matters, which are being handled and defended in the ordinary course of business. In addition, the Company is subject to various assertions, claims, proceedings and requests for indemnification concerning intellectual property, 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 channel. The Company is also audited by (or has initiated voluntary disclosure agreements with) numerous governmental agencies in various countries, including U.S. Federal and state authorities, concerning potential income tax, sales tax and unclaimed property liabilities. These matters are in various stages of investigation, negotiation and/or litigation, and are being vigorously defended. The Company intends to vigorously defend these matters and believes it has strong defenses. The Company is also being audited by an entity representing 45 states seeking recovery of “unclaimed property”. The Company is complying with the audit and is providing requested information.

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 routinely 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 September 30, 2015 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 September 30, 2015 any reasonably possible losses in excess of the amounts accrued would be material to the financial statements.

Following the previously reported independent investigation of Gilbert Fiorentino and Carl Fiorentino by our Audit Committee in 2011 (in response to a whistleblower report) for a variety of improper acts, the subsequent termination of their employment and the entering into by Gilbert Fiorentino of a settlement agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on November 20, 2014 the United States Attorney’s Office (“USAO”) for the Southern District of Florida announced that Gilbert Fiorentino and Carl Fiorentino had been charged with mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in connection with a scheme to defraud TigerDirect and Systemax. Specifically, the charges set forth a scheme to obtain kickbacks and other benefits, and to conceal this illicit income from the IRS, all while Gilbert Fiorentino and Carl Fiorentino were employed as senior executives at the Company’s NATG business. On December 2, 2014, the United States Attorney’s Office announced that Gilbert Fiorentino and Carl Fiorentino had pled guilty to various charges, and on March 3, 2015, Gilbert Fiorentino and Carl Fiorentino were sentenced to sixty and eighty months’ imprisonment, respectively. The Company began the process of seeking restitution on April 29, 2015. The judge assigned consideration of certain elements of the Company's restitution claims to a magistrate judge. The hearing before the magistrate judge was completed in September 2015 and the Company is awaiting the ruling on those certain elements and its other restitution claims. The Company cannot predict the outcome of its restitution claims.

The Company's Audit Committee, with the assistance of independent outside counsel, has been cooperating with a request by the USAO that it assist the USAO’s investigation into allegations arising from the Fiorentino investigation regarding possible executive officer conflicts of interest and internal controls and books and records violations. The Company’s Audit Committee, along with the Audit Committee’s independent outside counsel, conducted an investigation of the allegations and its counsel presented the Audit Committee’s findings to the USAO in July 2015. The Company has been advised that the Audit Committee investigation has found no evidence of executive officer conflicts of interest, and no material evidence of internal controls violations or books and records violations. The Audit Committee considers its investigation to be closed at this time and the Company has been advised there has been no further contact from the USAO. Notwithstanding, it is not possible at this time to predict if or when the USAO will conclude its investigation; what subject(s) will be investigated; what actions, if any, may be taken by the government as a result of its investigation; or whether any of these matters will have a material adverse impact on the Company.