“GT Advanced Technologies Inc said it will cut 890 jobs, close an Arizona plant expected to make scratch-resistant screens for Apple Inc, and suggested it could pursue legal claims against the iPhone maker while revamping under bankruptcy,” Tom Hals reports for Reuters.
“GT Advanced said it was burning through $1 million a day at the operations it intended to close,” Hals reports. “‘GT believes that it has many claims against Apple arising out of its business relationship with Apple,’ the company said in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manchester, New Hampshire.”
“The company said it could not pursue the unspecified claims at the outset of its bankruptcy, but that the claims would allow GT Advanced to terminate several Apple agreements that it said were burdensome and of no value,” Hals reports. “Apple responded to requests for comment by pointing to its earlier statement that it remains committed to preserving jobs in Arizona and was consulting with state and local officials on its next steps.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
GT Advanced blames ‘oppressive and burdensome’ Apple terms in quest to ax sapphire production – October 10, 2014
GT Advanced to request to shut down synthetic sapphire production – October 10, 2014
Shattered sapphire dreams at GT Advanced – October 8, 2014
Apple’s withholding of $139 million payment led to GT Advanced bankruptcy filing – October 7, 2014
GT Advanced CEO sold 9,000 shares the day before Apple’s iPhone 6/Plus event – October 7, 2014
Law firms launch investigations into possible violations of federal securities laws by GT Advanced – October 7, 2014
Analyst: Apple may take possession of sapphire furnaces from GT Advanced – October 7, 2014
Apple to provide debtor in possession financing to GT Advanced? – October 7, 2014
Investors stunned over GT Advanced bankruptcy filing – October 7, 2014
GT Advanced files for chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection – October 6, 2014
Apple and GT Advanced rampup sapphire production in Mesa – August 11, 2014
GT Advanced expects sales of sapphire production tools to boost profit; shares surge – August 5, 2014
Apple and GT Advanced open second sapphire plant in Salem, Massachusetts – June 19, 2014
Apple patents method for embedding sapphire displays in LiquidMetal device chassis – May 27, 2014
Anybody can sue anybody. Talk is cheap.
Hey! Them’s fightin’words! Get ready to get sued!
Yes they can and you can bet as an investor in GTAT, my attorneys are ready to sue every member of the GTAT management team, their colleagues, family members, friends, and even their kids for every freak’n dime.
If you publicly lie to all your investors in ever report and give “rosy” projection for the coming months and then wake up one day and file Chapter 11 right after you cashed in the week before……yeah that’s FRAUD asshats!
Hey GT, lead, follow or GTFO and don’t let the blast door hit you in the ass.
You better do as I say, or the guy holding the gun gets it!
do as he say! do as he say!
Looks like the leadership at GT has lost their collective mind. What a bizarre turn of events.
GTAT signed the agreement, which means they agreed to whatever terms they are now supposedly whining about.
My personal opinion, just as with everything Apple, the blogoshpere is running amok with speculative exaggerations about what’s going on.
C’mon, Apple no saint
Modern supply chain: create dazzle, get a major company to buy in, choke, and hope major company buys you out to save face. Sue them just to pressure a buyout by claiming buyer did something wrong. Some might call such a business plan “fraud” and “extortion”…
Hmmm, is it just a coincidence that GT files for bankruptcy just after Apple so publicly announced the Watch with sapphire? Had GT let their cat out of the bag before the announcement, apple could have quietly waited another quarter or two. Or perhaps Apple, did have an idea that there might be a supply bump with GT, so they left the actual launch date vague?
GTAT can complain all it wants about burdensome contract terms, but it agreed to those terms. Unless Apple violated the terms of the contract(s), then GTAT can sue all it wants but it will lose, and likely owe Apple attorneys’ fees on top of everything (in Arizona, a specific statute permits a party which wins in a contract dispute to recover its attorneys’ fees).
However, I seriously doubt any of GTAT’s claims will see the light of day. GTAT would have to pay an attorney a very large retainer fee, which now would have to be approved by the BK trustee, so it could pursue the claims. No attorney is going to take on Apple without a large seven figure retainer safely in the bank.
Who said the area of dispute was contract terms?
All you Clarence Darrows do not know shit about any agreements. Wait until someone says something. Gees.
Seems they promised the smartphone version of Cold Fusion, and the gig is up.
It should be Apple suing GTAT.
Did GTAT misrepresent their ability to provide a viable product to Apple? Hence no sapphire iPhone 6/+?
guess Apple’s extortion of the Arizona governor over “the gay wedding/cake baker for jobs” debacle didn’t work out so well…
for Arizonians.
If GT Advanced thinks its going to sue Apple over contracts that GT Advanced did not fulfill, evidenced by Apple withholding $139 million in contracted payments, GT Advanced has gone loony.
I believe this now qualifies as a soap opera. I’ll be watching it during my daily tea time. 😉
Bloody Apple, lending them hundreds of millions of dollars and giving them a full order book!
A contract is a contract.
Uh oh the stench of Samshittiness is in the air….
Sapphire plant dismantled…. to re-appear in South Korea?
I have no way of knowing this, but suspect Apple loaned them a great deal of money on the promise of the quality and yields that GT promised them. When they were no longer able to fulfill those demands, they have burned through all of that money, and have no means to repay those contingent loans.
That’s the scenario I envision, and if so, can’t see Apple as any more or any less than a creditor that had terms tied to their money that GT cannot meet, and cannot repay.
It does seem suspicious that GT’s cash reserves were lower than the amount that would have contractually obliged them to repay the Apple loan in full.