Company: VRT
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-005905
Chunk: 196

Company: Vertiv Holdings Co
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 196
---
 it could have a material adverse effect on our business, profitability, and our earnings.

We are subject to risks related to legal claims and proceedings filed by or against us, and adverse outcomes in these matters may materially harm our business.

We are subject to various claims, disputes, investigations, demands, arbitration, litigation, or other legal proceedings. Legal claims and proceedings may relate to labor and employment matters, commercial contracts, intellectual property, disputes with customers and suppliers, product liability or defects, environmental, health and safety matters, property damage, theft, personal injury, fiduciary duties of our directors and officers, securities matters, and various other matters. Legal matters are inherently uncertain, and we cannot predict the duration, scope, outcome or consequences. In addition, legal matters are expensive and time-consuming to defend, settle, and/or resolve, and may require us to implement certain remedial measures that could prove costly or disruptive to our business and operations. The unfavorable resolution of one or more of these matters could have an adverse effect on our business, results of operations and financial condition.

24

Our financial performance may suffer if we cannot continue to develop, commercialize or enforce the intellectual property rights on which our businesses depend, or if we are unable to gain and maintain access to relevant intellectual property rights of third parties through license and other agreements, or are subjected to successful third-party claims of infringement.

Our business relies on a substantial portfolio of global intellectual property rights. Intellectual property laws vary by jurisdiction and we may be unable to protect or enforce our proprietary rights adequately in all cases, or do so without undue cost. In addition, our intellectual property rights could be challenged, invalidated, infringed or circumvented. The existence of many patents in our fields, the secrecy of some pending patent applications, and the rapid rate of issuance of new patents makes it economically impractical to make conclusive advance determinations of whether a product or any of its components infringes the patent rights of others. We also rely on maintenance of proprietary information (such as trade secrets, know-how and other confidential information) to protect certain intellectual property, which can be difficult to maintain as confidential. Confidentiality agreements may not provide an adequate remedy in the event of an unauthorized disclosure, and the enforceability of such confidentiality agreements may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Failure to obtain or maintain trade secrets, protection of know-how and other confidential information could adversely impact our business.

We also rely on licensing certain intellectual property rights from third parties, which requires that we monitor and manage our use of third-party and open