Commitments and Contingencies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2020

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and Contingencies

NOTE 12 – COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

Legal matters

While we are involved from time to time in claims and legal proceedings that result from, and are incidental to, the conduct of our business including business and commercial litigation, employee and product liability claims, there are no material pending legal proceedings to which the Company or any of its subsidiaries is a party, or of which any of their property is subject. It is possible, however, that an adverse resolution of an unexpectedly large number of such individual claims or proceedings could in the aggregate have a material adverse effect on the results of operations for a particular year or quarter.

Guarantees

The Company and certain of the Company’s consolidated subsidiaries are contingently liable for certain obligations of affiliated companies primarily in the form of guarantees of debt and performance under contracts entered into as a normal business practice. This includes guarantees of non-U.S. excise taxes and customs duties. As at March 31, 2020, such guarantees which are not recognized as liabilities in the condensed consolidated financial statements amounted to $4.6 million (December 31, 2019–$4.7 million). The remaining terms of the fixed maturity guarantees vary from 1 month to 4 years, with some further guarantees having no fixed expiry date.

Under the terms of the guarantee arrangements, generally the Company would be required to perform should the affiliated company fail to fulfill its obligations under the arrangements. In some cases, the guarantee arrangements have recourse provisions that would enable the Company to recover any payments made under the terms of the guarantees from securities held of the guaranteed parties’ assets.

The Company and its affiliates have numerous long-term sales and purchase commitments in their various business activities, which are expected to be fulfilled with no adverse consequences material to the Company.