| Commitments and Contingencies |
Commitments and Contingencies
Commitments
Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements
As of December 31, 2019, we had no off-balance sheet arrangements that have, or are reasonably likely to have, a current or future material effect on our consolidated financial condition, results of operations, liquidity, capital expenditures or capital resources.
We have a cash pooling arrangement with a financial institution for cash management purposes. This arrangement allows for cash withdrawals from the financial institution based upon our aggregate operating cash balances held within the same financial institution (“Aggregate Cash Deposits”). This arrangement also allows us to withdraw amounts exceeding the Aggregate Cash Deposits up to an agreed-upon limit. The net balance of the withdrawals and the Aggregate Cash Deposits are used by the financial institution as a basis for calculating our net interest expense or income under the arrangement. As of December 31, 2019, we had a total of $4.8 billion in aggregate cash deposits, partially offset by $4.7 billion in cash withdrawals, held within the financial institution under the cash pooling arrangement.
Litigation and Other Legal Matters Overview We are involved in legal and regulatory proceedings on an ongoing basis. Many of these proceedings are in early stages and may seek an indeterminate amount of damages. If we believe that a loss arising from such matters is probable and can be reasonably estimated, we accrue the estimated liability in our financial statements. If only a range of estimated losses can be determined, we accrue an amount within the range that, in our judgment, reflects the most likely outcome; if none of the estimates within that range is a better estimate than any other amount, we accrue the low end of the range. For those proceedings in which an unfavorable outcome is reasonably possible but not probable, we have disclosed an estimate of the reasonably possible loss or range of losses or we have concluded that an estimate of the reasonably possible loss or range of losses arising directly from the proceeding (i.e., monetary damages or amounts paid in judgment or settlement) is not material. If we cannot estimate the probable or reasonably possible loss or range of losses arising from a proceeding, we have disclosed that fact. In assessing the materiality of a proceeding, we evaluate, among other factors, the amount of monetary damages claimed, as well as the potential impact of non-monetary remedies sought by plaintiffs (e.g., injunctive relief) that may require us to change our business practices in a manner that could have a material adverse impact on our business. With respect to the matters disclosed in this Note 12, we are unable to estimate the possible loss or range of losses that could potentially result from the application of such non-monetary remedies.
Amounts accrued for legal and regulatory proceedings for which we believe a loss is probable were not material for the twelve months ended December 31, 2019. Except as otherwise noted for the proceedings described in this Note 12, we have concluded, based on currently available information, that reasonably possible losses arising directly from the proceedings (i.e., monetary damages or amounts paid in judgment or settlement) in excess of our recorded accruals are also not material. However, legal and regulatory proceedings are inherently unpredictable and subject to significant uncertainties. If one or more matters were resolved against us in a reporting period for amounts in excess of management’s expectations, the impact on our operating results or financial condition for that reporting period could be material. Legal fees are expensed as incurred.
General Matters
Third parties have from time to time claimed, and others may claim in the future, that we have infringed their intellectual property rights. We are subject to patent disputes, and expect that we could be subject to additional patent infringement claims involving various aspects of our business as our products and services continue to expand in scope and complexity. Such claims may be brought directly or indirectly against us and/or against our customers (who may be entitled to contractual indemnification under their contracts with us), and we are subject to increased exposure to such claims as a result of our acquisitions and divestitures and in cases where we are entering new lines of business. We have in the past been forced to litigate such claims. We may also become more vulnerable to third-party claims as laws such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Lanham Act and the Communications Decency Act are interpreted by the courts, and as we expand the scope of our business (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and become subject to laws in jurisdictions where the underlying laws with respect to the potential liability of online intermediaries like ourselves are either unclear or less favorable. We believe that additional lawsuits alleging that we have violated patent, copyright or trademark laws will be filed against us. Intellectual property claims, whether meritorious or not, are time consuming and costly to defend and resolve, could require expensive changes in our methods of doing business or could require us to enter into costly royalty or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms.
From time to time, we are involved in other disputes or regulatory inquiries that arise in the ordinary course of business, including suits by our users (individually or as class actions) alleging, among other things, improper disclosure of our prices, rules or policies, that our practices, prices, rules, policies or customer/user agreements violate applicable law or that we have acted unfairly and/or not acted in conformity with such practices, prices, rules, policies or agreements. Further, the number and significance of these disputes and inquiries are increasing as the political and regulatory landscape changes and, as we have grown larger, our businesses have expanded in scope (both in terms of the range of products and services that we offer and our geographical operations) and our products and services have increased in complexity. Any claims or regulatory actions against us, whether meritorious or not, could be time consuming, result in costly litigation, damage awards (including statutory damages for certain causes of action in certain jurisdictions), injunctive relief or increased costs of doing business through adverse judgment or settlement, require us to change our business practices in expensive ways, require significant amounts of management time, result in the diversion of significant operational resources or otherwise harm our business.
Indemnification Provisions
We entered into a separation and distribution agreement and various other agreements with PayPal to govern the separation and relationship of the two companies. These agreements provide for specific indemnity and liability obligations and could lead to disputes between us and PayPal, which may be significant. In addition, the indemnity rights we have against PayPal under the agreements may not be sufficient to protect us and our indemnity obligations to PayPal may be significant.
In addition, we have entered into indemnification agreements with each of our directors, executive officers and certain other officers. These agreements require us to indemnify such individuals, to the fullest extent permitted by Delaware law, for certain liabilities to which they may become subject as a result of their affiliation with us.
In the ordinary course of business, we have included limited indemnification provisions in certain of our agreements with parties with which we have commercial relations, including our standard marketing, promotions and application programming interface license agreements. Under these contracts, we generally indemnify, hold harmless and agree to reimburse the indemnified party for losses suffered or incurred by the indemnified party in connection with claims by a third party with respect to our domain names, trademarks, logos and other branding elements to the extent that such marks are applicable to our performance under the subject agreement. In certain cases, we have agreed to provide indemnification for intellectual property infringement. It is not possible to determine the maximum potential loss under these indemnification provisions due to our limited history of prior indemnification claims and the unique facts and circumstances involved in each particular provision.
To date, losses recorded in our consolidated statement of income in connection with our indemnification provisions have not been significant, either individually or collectively.
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