Commitments and Contingencies |
9 Months Ended |
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Sep. 30, 2021 | |
| 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 associated with these arrangements in the condensed 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.
Procurement of Technology Solutions
On June 21, 2021, the Company entered into a purchase agreement with a privately held company to acquire the technology solutions being developed by this privately held company for a purchase price of $18.0 million, including an advance of $3.0 million. The transaction is expected to close no later than December 31, 2022. In addition, the agreement includes an earn-out payment of $10.0 million based upon achievement of certain target metrics within five years after the date of the Company’s launch of the technology solutions.
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. Fact discovery closed on April 23, 2021, other than a few outstanding matters, and expert discovery is underway.
The Company believes FinancialApps’s allegations are without merit and will continue to defend the claims against it 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. On March 15, 2021, Plaintiffs filed a second amended class action complaint re-alleging, among others, the claims the district court had dismissed. The second amended complaint did not allege any claims against the Company or Yodlee that were not previously alleged in first amended complaint. On May 5, 2021, the Company filed a motion to dismiss all claims asserted against it in the second amended complaint, and Yodlee filed a motion to dismiss most claims asserted against it in the second amended complaint. On July 19, 2021, the Court granted in part Yodlee’s motion, resulting in the dismissal of all federal law claims and two of the state-law claims. On August 5, 2021, the Court granted the Company's motion to dismiss, and dismissed the Company from the lawsuit. Discovery has begun on the remaining state law claims against Yodlee. On October 9, 2021, Yodlee filed a motion for summary judgment, which is currently scheduled for a hearing in late January 2022. Yodlee will continue to vigorously defend the claims against it.
The Company’s subsidiary, Envestnet Asset Management, Inc. (“EAM”), has been named as a defendant in two putative class action lawsuits filed on December 28, 2020 and March 4, 2021, respectively, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. The case captions are Drake v. BBVA USA Bancshares, Inc. et al., No. 2:20-CV-02076-ACA (“Drake”) and Ferguson v. BBVA Compass Bancshares, Inc. et al, No. 2:19-CV-01135-MHH (“Ferguson”). The material allegations of both cases are identical. The plaintiff alleges that EAM, acting as investment advisor to BBVA USA Bancshares, Inc.’s Compass SmartInvestor 401(k) Plan (the “SmartInvestor Plan”), along with BBVA and 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. On August 27, 2021, the Court granted EAM’s motion to dismiss the Drake lawsuit. On September 3, 2021, the Court granted EAM’s motion to dismiss the Ferguson lawsuit.
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 an accrual for any claims as of September 30, 2021. 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. As of September 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020, the Company estimated a sales and use tax liability of $3.8 million and $6.6 million, respectively, related to revenues in multiple jurisdictions. This amount is included in accrued expenses and other liabilities in the condensed consolidated balance sheets.
As of September 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020, the Company also estimated a sales and use tax receivable of $2.8 million and $2.1 million, 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 condensed 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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