Company: CRAI
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001053706-25-000007
Chunk: 47

Company: CRA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-20
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 47
---
 with them rather than with us. In the event a non-employee expert departs and acts in a way that we believe violates the expert's restrictive covenants we will consider any legal and equitable remedies we may have against such person on a case-by-case basis. We may decide that preserving cooperation and a professional relationship with the former non-employee expert or clients that worked with the non-employee expert, or other concerns, outweigh the benefits of any possible legal action or recovery.

To meet our long-term growth targets, we need to establish ongoing relationships with additional non-employee experts who have reputations as leading experts in their fields. We may be unable to establish relationships with any additional non-employee experts. In addition, any relationship that we do establish may not help us meet our objectives or generate the revenues or earnings that we anticipate.

Additional hiring and business acquisitions could disrupt our operations, increase our costs, or adversely affect our results

Our business strategy is dependent, in part, upon our ability to grow by hiring consultant employees or groups of consultant employees, and we regularly evaluate opportunities to acquire other businesses. We may not, however, be able to identify, hire, acquire, or successfully integrate new employees and acquired businesses without substantial expense, delay, or other operational or financial obstacles. Competition for future hiring and acquisition opportunities in our markets could increase the compensation we offer to potential employees or the prices we pay for businesses we wish to acquire. In addition, we may be unable to achieve the financial, operational, and other benefits we anticipate from any hiring or acquisition, including those we have completed. New acquisitions could also negatively impact existing practices. Hiring additional employees or acquiring businesses could also involve a number of additional risks, including:

•the diversion of management's time, attention, and resources from managing and marketing our existing business;

•the failure to retain key acquired personnel or retain existing personnel who may view the acquisition unfavorably;

•additional conflicts of interest due to the acquired businesses that could impact our ability to secure new engagements;

•the need to compensate new employees while they wait for their restrictive covenants with other institutions to expire;

•the potential need to raise significant amounts of capital to finance a transaction or the potential issuance of equity securities that could be dilutive to our existing stockholders;

•increased costs to improve or coordinate managerial, operational, financial, and administrative systems, including compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002;

•the potential assumption of legal liabilities;

•the inability to attain the expected synergies