On September 9, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit of Chicago, Illinois affirmed the ruling of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in the matter of JNS Power & Control Systems, Inc. v. 350 Green, LLC in favor of JNS, which affirmed the sale of certain assets by 350 Green to JNS and the assumption of certain 350 Green liabilities by JNS. On April 7, 2016, JNS amended the complaint to add the Company alleging an unspecified amount of lost revenues from the chargers, among other matters, caused by the defendants. Plaintiff also seeks indemnity for its unspecified attorney’s fees and costs in connection with enforcing the Asset Purchase Agreement in courts in New York and Chicago. On July 26, 2017, the District Court denied the Company’s motion to dismiss the Company from the suit. The deadline for the Company to answer the second amended complaint is August 17, 2017. The deadline for the parties to complete discovery is December 8, 2017. The next status hearing on the matter is set for December 8, 2017. As of June 30, 2017, the Company accrued a $300,000 liability in connection with its settlement offer to JNS.
I believe the additional statement and specific language added to the most recent CCGI filing is a significant change from anything we’ve seen in the past regarding these legal proceedings.
...The deadline for the parties to complete discovery is December 8, 2017. The next status hearing on the matter is set for December 8, 2017. The parties are in the process of documenting a settlement.
In looking at the language of past filings, they probably didn’t have to add the last sentence about the parties being in the process of documenting a settlement, but they did. Also, since I’m a stickler for semantics, I think the use of the work “documenting” is also very telling. This is very different than something like settlement talks, for example. It implies to me that the parties have not only agreed to settle, but also have outlined the basic terms, which are being documented.
With the deadline for parties to complete discovery being Dec. 8, I would assume that they would need to inform the judge that a settlement is in process at the next status hearing (also Dec. 8). And even if they are still finalizing the documentation, I would expect we may get some sort of confirmation (settlement vs. trial for damages) from what comes out of the status hearing. Not sure if the market has fully taken notice yet… but I guess we’ll see what happens.