Commitments and Contingencies |
12 Months Ended |
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Dec. 31, 2020 | |
| Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Abstract] | |
| Commitments and Contingencies | Commitments and Contingencies Purchase Obligations and Indemnifications
The Company includes various types of indemnification and guarantee clauses in certain arrangements. These indemnifications and guarantees may include, but are not limited to, infringement claims related to intellectual property, direct or consequential damages and guarantees to certain service providers and service level requirements with certain customers. The type and amount of any potential indemnification or guarantee varies substantially based on the nature of each arrangement. The Company has experienced no previous claims and cannot determine the maximum amount of potential future payments, if any, related to such indemnification and guarantee provisions. The Company believes that it is unlikely it will have to make material payments under these arrangements and therefore has not recorded a contingent liability in the consolidated balance sheets.
The Company enters into unconditional purchase obligations arrangements for certain of its services that it receives in the normal course of business. As of December 31, 2020, the Company estimated future minimum unconditional purchase obligations of approximately $56,000.
Legal Proceedings
The Company and its subsidiary, Yodlee, Inc. (“Yodlee”), have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed on July 17, 2019, by FinancialApps, LLC (“FinancialApps”) in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware. The case caption is FinancialApps, LLC v. Envestnet Inc., et al., No. 19-cv-1337 (D. Del.). FinancialApps alleges that, after entering into a 2017 services agreement with Yodlee, Envestnet and Yodlee breached the agreement and misappropriated proprietary information to develop competing credit risk assessment software. The complaint includes claims for, among other things, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, tortious interference with prospective business opportunities, unfair competition, copyright infringement and breach of contract. FinancialApps is seeking significant monetary damages and various equitable and injunctive relief.
On September 17, 2019, the Company and Yodlee filed a motion to dismiss certain of the claims in the complaint filed by FinancialApps, including the copyright infringement, unfair competition and fraud claims. On August 25, 2020, the District Court granted in part and denied in part the Company and Yodlee’s motion. Specifically, the Company and Yodlee prevailed on FinancialApps’ counts alleging copyright infringement and violations of the Illinois Deceptive Trade Practices Act. And while the Court was receptive to Envestnet and Yodlee’s argument that several of FinancialApps’ other counts are based on allegations that amount to copyright infringement—and therefore should fail due to copyright preemption—the Court found that FinancialApps had alleged enough conduct distinct from copyright infringement to survive dismissal at this early stage.
On October 30, 2019, the Company and Yodlee filed counterclaims against FinancialApps. Yodlee alleges that FinancialApps fraudulently induced it to enter into contracts with FinancialApps, then breached those contracts. FinancialApps has filed a motion to dismiss Yodlee’s counterclaims. On September 15, 2020, the District Court denied FinancialApps’ motion on all counts except for the breach-of-contract claim which was dismissed on a pleading technicality without prejudice. On that
count, the Court granted Yodlee leave to amend its counterclaim, cure the technical deficiency, and reassert its claim. Yodlee and Envestnet filed amended counterclaims on September 30, 2020. The amended counterclaims (1) cure that technical deficiency and reassert Yodlee’s contract counterclaim; and (2) broaden the defamation counterclaims arising out of various defamatory statements FinancialApps disseminated in the trade press after filing the lawsuit. On January 14, 2021, the Court ordered that (i) FinancialApps’s claims against Yodlee—as well as Yodlee’s counterclaims against FinancialApps—must be tried before the judge instead of a jury pursuant to a jury waiver provision in the parties’ agreement; and (ii) FinancialApps’s claims against Envestnet (and Envestnet’s counterclaim) must be heard by a jury. The Court has scheduled the Envestnet jury trial to take place before the Yodlee bench trial.
The Company believes FinancialApps’s allegations are without merit and intends to defend the action and litigate the counterclaims vigorously.
The Company and Yodlee were also named as defendants in a putative class action lawsuit filed on August 25, 2020, by Plaintiff Deborah Wesch in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. On October 21, 2020, an amended class action complaint was filed by Plaintiff Wesch and nine additional named plaintiffs. The case caption is Deborah Wesch, et al., v. Yodlee, Inc., et al., Case No. 3:20-cv-05991-SK. Plaintiffs allege that Yodlee unlawfully collected their financial transaction data when plaintiffs linked their bank accounts to a mobile application that uses Yodlee’s API, and plaintiffs further allege that Yodlee unlawfully sold the transaction data to third parties. The complaint alleges violations of certain California statutes and common law, including the Unfair Competition Law, and federal statutes, including the Stored Communications Act. Plaintiffs are seeking monetary damages and equitable and injunctive relief on behalf of themselves and a putative nationwide class and California subclass of persons who provided their log-in credentials to a Yodlee-powered app in an allegedly similar manner from 2014 to the present. The Company believes that it is not properly named as a defendant in the lawsuit and it further believes, along with Yodlee, that plaintiffs’ claims are without merit. On November 4, 2020, the Company and Yodlee filed separate motions to dismiss all of the claims in the complaint. On February 16, 2021, the district court granted in part and denied in part Yodlee’s motion to dismiss the amended complaint and granted the plaintiffs leave to further amend. The court reserved ruling on the Company’s motion to dismiss and granted limited jurisdictional discovery to the plaintiffs. The Company and Yodlee intend to vigorously defend the lawsuit.
The Company’s subsidiary, Envestnet Asset Management, Inc. (“EAM”), has been named as a defendant in a putative class action lawsuit filed on December 28, 2020 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The case caption is Drake v. BBVA USA Bancshares, Inc. et al., No. 2:20-CV-02076-ACA. The plaintiff alleges that EAM, acting as investment advisor to BBVA USA Bancshares, Inc.’s Compass SmartInvestor 401(k) Plan (the “SmartInvestor Plan”), among others, breached its fiduciary duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) in connection with the selection and maintenance of the SmartInvestor Plan’s investment options. The plaintiff seeks unspecified damages on behalf of a class of SmartInvestor Plan participants from July 17, 2013 through December 28, 2020. While EAM has not yet responded to the complaint, EAM believes that it is not properly named as a defendant in the lawsuit and it further believes, along with the Company, that the claims are without merit and intends to defend the action vigorously.
In addition, the Company is involved in legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of its business. Legal fees and other costs associated with such actions are expensed as incurred. The Company will record a provision for these claims when it is both probable that a liability has been incurred and the amount of the loss, or a range of the potential loss, can be reasonably estimated. These provisions are reviewed regularly and adjusted to reflect the impacts of negotiations, settlements, rulings, advice of legal counsel, and other information or events pertaining to a particular case. For litigation matters where a loss may be reasonably possible, but not probable, or is probable but not reasonably estimable, no accrual is established, but if the matter is material, it is subject to disclosures. The Company believes that liabilities associated with any claims, while possible, are not probable, and therefore has not recorded any accrual for any claims as of December 31, 2020. Further, while any possible range of loss cannot be reasonably estimated at this time, the Company does not believe that the outcome of any of these proceedings, individually or in the aggregate, would, if determined adversely to it, have a material adverse effect on its financial condition or business, although an adverse resolution of legal proceedings could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s results of operations or cash flow in a particular quarter or year.
Contingencies
Certain of the Company’s revenues are subject to sales and use taxes in certain jurisdictions where it conducts business in the United States. During 2020 and 2019, the Company estimated a sales and use tax liability of $6,563 and $10,220, respectively, related to revenues in multiple jurisdictions. This amount is included in accrued expenses and other liabilities in the consolidated balance sheets.
For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, the Company also estimated a sales and use tax receivable of $2,087 and $3,346, respectively, related to the estimated recoverability of a portion of the liability from customers. This amount is included in prepaid expenses and other current assets in the consolidated balance sheets.
Additional future information obtained from the applicable jurisdictions may affect the Company’s estimate of its sales and use tax liability, but such change in the estimate cannot currently be made.
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