CTS CORP Commitments Disclosure
NOTE 11 — Commitments and Contingencies
Certain processes in the manufacture of our current and past products may create by-products classified as hazardous waste. As a result, we have been notified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), state environmental agencies and in some cases, groups of potentially responsible parties, that we may be potentially liable for environmental contamination at several sites currently or formerly owned or operated by us. Currently, none of these costs and accruals relate to sites that provide revenue generating activities for the Company. Two of those sites, Asheville, North Carolina (the "Asheville Site") and Mountain View, California, are designated National Priorities List sites under the EPA’s Superfund program. We accrue a liability for probable remediation activities, claims, and proceedings against us with respect to environmental matters if the amount can be reasonably estimated, and provide disclosures including the nature of a loss whenever it is probable or reasonably possible that a potentially material loss may have occurred but cannot be estimated. We record contingent loss accruals on an undiscounted basis.
A roll-forward of remediation reserves included in accrued expenses and other liabilities in the Consolidated Balance Sheets is composed of the following:
|
|
Years Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
|
|
2025 |
|
|
2024 |
|
|
2023 |
|
|||
Balance at beginning of period |
|
$ |
12,192 |
|
|
$ |
12,044 |
|
|
$ |
11,048 |
|
Remediation expense |
|
|
5,465 |
|
|
|
1,701 |
|
|
|
3,502 |
|
Remediation payments |
|
|
(1,213 |
) |
|
|
(1,554 |
) |
|
|
(2,497 |
) |
Other activity (1) |
|
|
6 |
|
|
|
1 |
|
|
|
(9 |
) |
Balance at end of the period |
|
$ |
16,450 |
|
|
$ |
12,192 |
|
|
$ |
12,044 |
|
(1) Other activity includes currency translation adjustments not recorded through remediation expense.
The Company operates under and in accordance with a federal consent decree, dated March 7, 2017, with the EPA for the Asheville Site. On February 8, 2023, the Company received a letter from the EPA (the “EPA Letter”) seeking reimbursement of its past response costs and interest thereon relating to any release or threatened release of hazardous substances at the Asheville Site in the aggregate amount of $9,955 from the three potentially responsible parties associated with the Asheville Site, including the Company. Subsequently, the Department of Justice (the "DOJ") re-evaluated the EPA's past response costs and interest thereon and adjusted the amount of the costs to $8,288. On October 3, 2025, the Company presented a settlement offer as part of pre-litigation mediation and the mediation is ongoing. There can be no assurance that the matter will settle in mediation. The Company has updated its estimate of potential exposure to be between $6,575 and $7,169. We have determined that no point within this range is more likely than another and, therefore, we have recorded a loss estimate of $6,575 as of December 31, 2025.
Unrelated to the environmental claims described above, certain other legal claims are pending against us with respect to matters arising out of the ordinary conduct of our business.
We provide product warranties when we sell our products and accrue for estimated liabilities at the time of sale. Warranty estimates are forecasts based on the best available information and historical claims experience. We accrue for specific warranty claims if we believe that the facts of a specific claim make it probable that a liability in excess of our historical experience has been incurred and provide disclosures for specific claims whenever it is reasonably possible that a material loss may be incurred which cannot be estimated.
We cannot provide assurance that the ultimate disposition of environmental, legal, and product warranty claims will not materially exceed the amount of our accrued losses and adversely impact our consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows. Our accrued liabilities and disclosures will be adjusted accordingly if additional information becomes available in the future.
About Commitments Disclosures
Commitments and contingencies disclosures catalog a company's off-balance-sheet obligations and legal exposures — purchase commitments, guarantee arrangements, pending litigation, and regulatory proceedings. These items represent potential future cash outflows that may not appear as liabilities on the balance sheet until they become probable and estimable.
Key signals: litigation reserves and disclosed loss ranges quantify management's estimate of legal exposure, but unquantified "reasonably possible" losses often represent the larger risk. Watch for changes in language around pending cases — shifts from "remote" to "reasonably possible" or increases in estimated loss ranges signal deteriorating outcomes. Unconditional purchase obligations and take-or-pay contracts create fixed cost structures that reduce operational flexibility. Guarantee arrangements for subsidiaries or joint ventures can create cascading obligations. Compare the total commitment schedule against projected free cash flow to assess whether the company can meet its obligations without additional financing.