“GT Advanced Technologies Inc. said it needs to settle disputes with Apple Inc. because ‘protracted litigation against one of the largest corporations in the world with over $100 billion of cash would be challenging and expensive,'” Peg Brickley reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“Jilted by Apple as a supplier of sapphire screen material for iPhones, GT Advanced filed for Chapter 11 protection earlier this month and moved to put under seal the explanation of what went wrong between the two companies,” Brickley reports. “Papers filed near midnight Monday say Apple is threatening to crush the small, distressed company with ‘numerous liquidated damages provisions in the Apple Agreements pursuant to which Apple would likely assert millions, if not billions, of dollars in secured and unsecured claims against certain of the Debtors,’ lawyers for GT Advanced wrote.”
“As explained in court and outlined last week by GT Advanced, the settlement gives GT Advanced years to sell the sapphire-manufacturing furnaces to raise money to pay off the Apple debt. Court papers don’t say what it will cost GT Advanced to store, maintain, market and sell the furnaces. The company gets 11 months free rent at the Arizona plant, court papers say,” Brickley reports. “The agreement hangs on getting a court order that orders the destruction of all copies of papers GT Advanced filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Hampshire which explain the trouble between the sapphire supplier and Apple, and the reasons for the bankruptcy. Besides striking the papers from the court docket, GT Advanced wants Judge Henry Boroff to order anyone who has copies of the documents to destroy them.”
Much more in the full article here.
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