"With the tiny current revenue/market cap of DECN wouldn't even a small (less than 10 million) settlement qualify as a forced declaration of such a material event?"
The problem is that the securities laws don't have what is called a bright line test for what constitutes "material". It's a subjective term that gets argued about every time it comes up and frankly it's probably not worth trying to determine objectively...in fact it can't be done.**** Like the saying goes, reasonable people will differ.
The strongest argument for the company to reveal the value of the settlement to its shareholders is the "do the right thing" argument that flows from the concept of corporate transparency. It can't possibly be argued that shareholders are better off not knowing. But if management is determined to leave the shareholders uninformed then all they can do is try to draw some conclusions from the financial statements when they are issued. Any recovery that we might think of as material should be obvious....I would expect a "healthy sum" to be. This is something that management will have a great deal of trouble avoiding if the financials are prepared according to generally accepted accounting principles. Even if cash is sent directly from JNJ to a trust or escrow account in the custody of DECN's attorneys it is still a DECN asset and must be reflected on DECN's balance sheet.
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