Chubb Fire & Security Group
(A Business of Carrier Global Corporation)
Notes to Condensed Combined Financial Statements (continued)
(Unaudited)
(In Thousands of Dollars)
Environmental
The Business’s operations are subject to environmental regulation by various authorities. We have accrued for the costs of environmental remediation activities, including but not limited to, investigatory, remediation, operating and maintenance costs and performance guarantees, and we periodically reassess these amounts. Management believes that the likelihood of incurring losses materially in excess of the amounts accrued is remote. As of June 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020, the outstanding liability for environmental obligations was $10,120 and $10,433, respectively, of which $6,410 and $6,652 is included in Accrued Liabilities and $3,710 and $3,781 is included in Other Long-term Liabilities in the accompanying Unaudited Condensed Combined Balance Sheets.
Legal Proceedings
Aqueous Film Forming Foam Litigation.
Carrier entities and many other parties have been named as defendants in numerous putative class actions and other lawsuits, alleging that the historic use of Aqueous Film Forming Foam (“AFFF”) caused personal injuries and property damage. Additionally, several state, municipal and water utility plaintiffs have commenced litigation against the same defendants to recover remediation costs related to historic use of AFFF. In December 2018, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (“MDL”) transferred and consolidated all the AFFF cases pending in the federal courts to the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina for pre-trial proceedings. As of August 1, 2021, there are approximately 1,448 cases pending in the MDL. One Chubb F&S entity, Chubb Fire, Ltd., a Carrier subsidiary, is currently named as a defendant in over 800 of those cases. Based upon information available at this time, we believe that Chubb Fire, Ltd. is not a proper party to this litigation as it was not engaged in AFFF manufacture or sale in the U.S. Further, at this time, given the factual, scientific and legal issues to be resolved relating to these claims, Carrier is unable to assess the probability of liability or reasonably estimate the damages, if any, to be allocated to Carrier, if one or more plaintiffs were to prevail in these cases and there can be no assurance that any such future exposure will not be material in any period.
Self-insurance
Liabilities related to self-insured risks were $7,385 and $7,465 as of June 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020, respectively, which are classified as Accrued liabilities in the accompanying Unaudited Condensed Combined Balance Sheets.
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