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Note 15 - Litigation Settlement

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2022

Legal Matters and Contingencies [Text Block]

15.

Litigation Settlement

On April 14, 2017, representatives for the estate of an individual plaintiff filed a wrongful death complaint with the Court against the Company and other defendants, including Biostage, a former subsidiary of the Company that was spun off in 2013, as well as another third party (the “Biostage Litigation”). The complaint sought payment for an unspecified amount of damages and alleges that the plaintiff sustained terminal injuries allegedly caused by products, including one synthetic trachea scaffold and two bioreactors, provided by certain of the named defendants and utilized in connection with surgeries performed by third parties in Europe in 2012 and 2013.

On April 27, 2022, the Company and Biostage executed a settlement with the plaintiffs of the Biostage Litigation and Biostage’s products liability insurance carriers (the “Biostage Settlement”), which resolved all claims by and between the parties and Biostage’s product liability insurance carriers and resulted in the dismissal with prejudice of the wrongful death claim and all claims between the Company, Biostage and the insurance carriers. The Biostage Settlement was entered into solely by way of compromise and settlement and is not in any way an admission of liability or fault by the Company or Biostage. Biostage has indemnified the Company for all losses and expenses, including legal expenses that the Company incurred in connection with the litigation and the Settlement.

During the three months ended March 31, 2022, the Company accrued $5.2 million of costs related to legal fees and the Biostage Settlement. Additionally, during the year ended December 31, 2021, the Company had incurred $0.3 million in legal fees in connection with the litigation. Due to the financial condition of Biostage, the Company determined that it was uncertain as to whether Biostage would be able to meet its indemnification obligation and had fully reserved any receivable from Biostage.

During the three months ended June 30, 2022 and September 30, 2022, the Company recorded adjustments of $4.9 million and $0.5 million, respectively, to the reserve against the indemnification receivable from Biostage. These adjustments reflected: i) the issuance by Biostage of 4,000 shares of its Series E Convertible Preferred Stock (the “Series E Preferred Stock”) to the Company on June 10, 2022, in satisfaction of $4.0 million of Biostage’s total indemnification obligation, ii) the payment by Biostage of the legal fees associated with the Settlement, and iii) other accrual adjustments. The Series E Preferred Stock was initially recorded at an estimated fair value of $3.9 million using a Monte Carlo valuation simulation incorporating information from selected guideline companies.

The Series E Preferred Stock ranks senior to all classes of common stock of Biostage and all classes of preferred stock of Biostage (unless the Company consents to Biostage’s issuance of other preferred stock that is senior to or pari passu with the Series E Preferred Stock) and accrues dividends at a rate of 8% per annum that are payable in additional shares of Series E Preferred Stock. Each share of Series E Preferred Stock is convertible at any time at the option of the Company into such number of shares of Biostage common stock determined by dividing (a) the $1,000 face value of the Series E Preferred Stock plus all accrued and unpaid dividends thereon by (b) the average of the volume weighted average trading prices of Biostage’s common stock, which is currently quoted on the OTCQB Marketplace, for the 60 consecutive trading days prior to the conversion. In the event Biostage has a subsequent qualified offering of its common stock, (which is defined as an offering of Biostage common stock that coincides with its uplisting onto Nasdaq, the first subsequent public offering by Biostage, or the first subsequent private placement by Biostage resulting in gross proceeds to Biostage of at least $4,000,000), the Series E Preferred Stock is mandatorily converted into Biostage common stock at the applicable qualified offering price. Due to Biostage’s limited operating history, their overall financial condition which includes the requirement to raise additional capital in order to continue as a going concern and the limited trading volume and liquidity of Biostage’s common stock, the value of the Series E Preferred Stock could fluctuate considerably or become worthless.

The book value of the Series E Preferred Stock, inclusive of accrued dividends, is $4.1 million and is included in the December 31, 2022 Consolidated Balance Sheet as a component of Other Long-Term Assets. The Company has elected the provisions within ASC 321 Investment Securities to subsequently measure the Series E Preferred Stock at its original cost minus impairment, if any, plus or minus changes resulting from observable price changes in orderly transactions for the identical or a similar investment of Biostage. As of December 31, 2022, there have been no observable price changes or indicators of impairment and therefore there have been no measurement adjustments to the carrying value of the Series E Preferred Stock.