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Guarantees, Commitments, and Contingencies | 9 Months Ended
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Sep. 30, 2012
Commitments Guarantees and Contingent Liabilities [Abstract] |
Guarantees, Commitments, and Contingencies | Guarantees, Commitments, and Contingencies We continue to monitor the conditions that are subject to guarantees and indemnifications to identify whether a liability must be recognized in our financial statements. Guarantees and Other Commitments The following table provides the estimated undiscounted amount of potential future payments for each major group of guarantees at September 30, 2012:
(in Millions) |
Guarantees: |
Guarantees of vendor financing | $ | 27.4 |
Foreign equity method investment debt guarantees | 7.7 |
Other debt guarantees | 16.0 |
Total | $ | 51.1 |
We provide guarantees to financial institutions on behalf of certain Agricultural Products customers, principally in Brazil and Mexico, for their seasonal borrowing. The total of these guarantees was $27.4 million and $18.5 million at September 30, 2012 and December 31, 2011, respectively, and are recorded on the condensed consolidated balance sheets for each date as “Guarantees of vendor financing”. The change in the guarantees is generally due to the seasonality of the Agricultural Products business. Excluded from the chart above, in connection with our property and asset sales and divestitures, we have agreed to indemnify the buyer for certain liabilities, including environmental contamination and taxes that occurred prior to the date of sale. Our indemnification obligations with respect to these liabilities may be indefinite as to duration and may or may not be subject to a deductible, minimum claim amount or cap. As such, it is not possible for us to predict the likelihood that a claim will be made or to make a reasonable estimate of the maximum potential loss or range of loss. If triggered, we may be able to recover some of the indemnity payments from third parties. We have not recorded any specific liabilities for these guarantees. Contingencies Hydrogen Peroxide competition / antitrust litigation. We are subject to actions brought by private plaintiffs relating to alleged violations of European and Canadian competition and antitrust laws, as further described below. European competition action. Multiple European purchasers of hydrogen peroxide who claim to have been harmed as a result of alleged violations of European competition law by hydrogen peroxide producers assigned their legal claims to a single entity formed by a law firm. The single entity then filed a lawsuit in Germany in March 2009 against European producers, including our wholly-owned Spanish subsidiary, Foret. Initial defense briefs were filed in April 2010, and an initial hearing was held during the first quarter of 2011, at which time case management issues were discussed. At a subsequent hearing in October 2011, the Court indicated that it was considering seeking guidance from the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) as to whether the German courts have jurisdiction over these claims. After submission of written comments on this issue by the parties, on March 1, 2012, the judge announced that she would refer the jurisdictional issues to the ECJ. Such a reference to the ECJ normally takes 12-18 months for completion. Since the case is in the preliminary stages and is based on a novel procedure - namely the attempt to create a cross-border “class action” which is not a recognized proceeding under EU or German law - we are unable to develop a reasonable estimate of our potential exposure of loss at this time. We intend to vigorously defend this matter. Canadian antitrust actions. In 2005 after public disclosures of the U.S. federal grand jury investigation into the hydrogen peroxide industry (which resulted in no charges brought against us) and the filing of various class actions in U.S. federal and state courts, which have all been settled, putative class actions against us and five other major hydrogen peroxide producers were filed in provincial courts in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia under the laws of Canada. The other five defendants have settled these claims for a total of approximately $20.6 million. On September 28, 2009, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice certified a class of direct and indirect purchasers of hydrogen peroxide from 1994 to 2005. Our motion for leave to appeal the class certification decision was denied in June 2010. Since then, the case has been largely dormant. In early 2012 the parties began a more detailed dialogue on discovery and at a hearing on April 5, 2012, they requested the judge to issue more specific guidance on document production. The court instead stayed the litigation pending resolution by the Canadian Supreme Court of the viability of indirect purchaser claims. The Canadian Supreme Court heard argument on that issue in October 2012. Since the proceedings are in the preliminary stages with respect to the merits, we are unable to develop a reasonable estimate of our potential exposure of loss at this time. We intend to vigorously defend these matters. Asbestos claims. Like hundreds of other industrial companies, we have been named as one of many defendants in asbestos-related personal injury litigation. Most of these cases allege personal injury or death resulting from exposure to asbestos in premises of FMC or to asbestos-containing components installed in machinery or equipment manufactured or sold by businesses classified as discontinued operations. We intend to continue managing these cases in accordance with our historical experience. We have established a reserve for this litigation within our discontinued operations and are unable to develop a reasonable estimate of any exposure of a loss in excess of the established reserve. Our experience has been that the overall trends in terms of the rate of filing of asbestos-related claims with respect to all potential defendants has changed over time, and that filing rates as to us in particular have varied significantly over the last several years. We are a peripheral defendant - that is, we have never manufactured asbestos or asbestos-containing components. As a result, claim filing rates against us have yet to form a predictable pattern, and we are unable to project a reasonably accurate future filing rate and thus, we are presently unable to reasonably estimate our asbestos liability with respect to claims that may be filed in the future. New York environmental claim. In late June 2004, we were served in a lawsuit captioned “Lewis et al v. FMC Corporation”, which was filed in United States District Court for the Western District of New York. The suit was brought by thirteen residents of Middleport, New York who alleged that we violated certain state and federal environmental laws and sought injunctive relief and monetary damages for personal injuries and property damage in connection with such alleged violations. A motion for summary judgment was decided in our favor on March 29, 2011. On April 28, 2011, the plaintiffs filed an appeal of that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but failed to perfect the appeal, and the case was dismissed. The plaintiffs filed a new complaint in New York state court in late September 2011 on the state law claims on which the federal district judge did not rule in granting the summary judgment motion in the original lawsuit (nuisance, personal injury and property damage). In October 2011, we removed the new lawsuit from the state court to federal court based on diversity of citizenship and filed a motion to dismiss the case on the basis of improper and untimely service of process. The motion was before the same district court judge to whom the original federal suit was assigned. The judge held an evidentiary hearing on July 11, 2012 for the parties to present factual evidence regarding the events surrounding service of process. On August 23, 2012, the judge entered an order dismissing the lawsuit with prejudice on the basis that service was ineffective and occurred on the last day allowable by law. The deadline for filing an appeal has now expired without plaintiffs having taken any action to appeal. Other contingent liabilities. In addition to the matters disclosed above, we have certain other contingent liabilities arising from litigation, claims, products we have sold, guarantees or warranties we have made, contracts we have entered into, indemnities we have provided, and other commitments incident to the ordinary course of business. Some of these contingencies are known - for example, pending product liability litigation or claims - but are so preliminary that the merits cannot be determined, or if more advanced, are not deemed material based on current knowledge; and some are unknown - for example, claims with respect to which we have no notice or claims which may arise in the future, resulting from products we have sold, guarantees or warranties we have made, or indemnities we have provided. Therefore, we are unable to develop a reasonable estimate of our potential exposure of loss for these contingencies, either individually or in the aggregate, at this time. Based on information currently available and established reserves, we have no reason to believe that the ultimate resolution of our known contingencies, including the matters described in this Note, will have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position, liquidity or results of operations. However, there can be no assurance that the outcome of these contingencies will be favorable, and adverse results in certain of these contingencies could have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position, results of operations in any one reporting period, or liquidity. See Note 11 for the legal proceeding associated with our environmental contingencies.

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