Commitments and contingencies

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2021

Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract]

Commitments and contingencies

Commitments and contingencies

Litigation

From time to time, the Company is subject to various claims and legal proceedings, either asserted or unasserted, that arise in the ordinary course of business. The Company accrues for legal contingencies if the Company can estimate the potential liability and if the Company believes it is probable that the case will be ruled against it. If a legal claim for which the Company did not accrue is resolved against it, the Company would record the expense in the period in which the ruling was made. The Company believes that the likelihood of an ultimate amount of liability, if any, for any pending claims of any type (alone or combined), except for the matter discussed in the following paragraph, that will materially affect the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows is remote. The ultimate outcome of any litigation is uncertain, however, and unfavorable outcomes could have a material negative impact on the Company’s financial condition and operating results.

Regardless of outcome, litigation can have an adverse impact on the Company because of defense costs, negative publicity, diversion of management resources and other factors.

In January 2010, Finisar Corporation (acquired by II-VI, Inc. in September 2019) ("Finisar"), filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, against Source Photonics, Inc., MRV Communications, Inc., Oplink Communications, Inc. and the Company, or collectively, the co-defendants. In the complaint, Finisar alleged infringement of certain of its U.S. patents. In 2011 the Company and Finisar agreed to suspend their respective claims and in 2012 the Company and Finisar further agreed to toll their respective claims. While there has been no action on this matter since 2012, the Company is currently unable to predict the outcome of this dispute and therefore cannot estimate a range of possible loss.

APAT Litigation and Settlement

Since April 2018, APAT OE and NeoPhotonics (China) Co., Ltd. and NeoPhotonics Dongguan Co. Ltd. (collectively "NeoChina", which are both wholly-owned subsidiaries of the Company) and NeoPhotonics Corporation was involved in a series of litigations and arbitrations which arose out of the 2017 sale by NeoChina of certain low speed transceiver assets to APAT.

On October 27, 2020, the parties entered into a settlement agreement to settle all claims and release all property preservation orders. In exchange for a full release of all claims by all parties, terms of the settlement agreement include the following: i) APAT OE to pay NeoChina the arbitration awards in the amount of RMB 52,014,519 (approximately $7.6 million) plus interest of RMB 6,122,150 (approximately $0.9 million) for a total amount of RMB 58,136,669 (approximately $8.5 million) and ii) NeoPhotonics Corporation to pay APAT Hong Kong, a wholly-owned subsidiary of APAT OE, $10,031,515 plus $500,000 in interest for a total payment $10,531,515 for amounts that were paid by customers to NeoPhotonics Corporation for sales of products made by APAT OE after the close of the asset purchase agreement.

In accordance with the settlement agreement, the first payment from APAT OE to the Company occurred in November 2020. All other payments between the parties, except the final payment, were completed in the first quarter of 2021 with the final payment by the Company to APAT expected to occur in first quarter of 2022.

The settlement award of RMB 58,136,669 (approximately $8.5 million) payable by APAT OE to the Company represents repayment of the net receivables owed to the Company at the settlement date and partial recovery of previously recognized losses incurred by the Company of approximately $3.0 million primarily related to a litigation settlement loss with a vendor for committed purchases of certain production materials for which the liabilities were assumed by APAT OE in the Asset Purchase Agreement entered into with the Company in December 2016 and the legal fees incurred for the lawsuits with APAT OE during 2018, 2019 and 2020.

At March 31, 2021, the amount payable by the Company to APAT OE under the settlement agreement is approximately $0.8 million, and is included in Accrued and Other Liabilities in the caption "Transition Services Agreement Payable" (See Note 6). APAT OE has repaid the full amount of the Transition Services Agreement Receivable owed to the Company and there is currently no balance remaining as of March 31, 2021 (See Note 6).

Indemnifications

In the normal course of business, the Company enters into agreements that contain a variety of representations and warranties and provides for general indemnification. The Company’s exposure under these agreements is unknown because it involves claims that may be made against the Company in the future, but have not yet been made. To date, the Company has not paid any claims or been required to defend any action related to its indemnification obligations. However, the Company may record charges in the future as a result of these indemnification obligations.