Yes, absolutely. The settlement is usually nott filed with the SEC, even in redacted form. The comany asks for confidential treatment and simply provides a rough summary of the material terms in an 8-K and 10-K.
Such as "The Company settled the litigation with XYZ, with the Company agreeing to pay single-digit royalties on Product X and a schedule of milestone payments subject to conditional payment upon Product X achieving certain sales milestones."
Usually the request for confidential treatment is based on the royalties and pricing information (reflected in milestone amounts and sales forecasts) constituting confidential business information. The SEC rarely denies the request for confidential treatment, and most often doesn't even ask for further supporting evidence for the request.
Of course, this doesn't mean that shareholders could nott sue the company in the future if they can show the company was deceptive and mischaracterized the settlement terms in the summary.
