Company: CRL
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001100682-25-000011
Chunk: 65

Company: CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-02-19
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 65
---
ics Solutions business, which could result in us or our clients failing to identify unsafe or contaminated materials; 

32

CHARLES RIVER LABORATORIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.

•risk of transmitting dangerous infectious diseases, as a result of the failure of our screening and testing processes, or new pathogens that may be undetected by such processes; and 

•recent acquisitions have expanded our business into the CDMO market, which entails additional risks of liability, including potential product liability claims, errors and omissions claims in connection with our services and potential liability under indemnification agreements between us and our officers and directors.

While we attempt to mitigate these risks through a variety of methods, it is impossible to completely eradicate such risks. In our RMS business, we mitigate these risks to the best of our abilities through our regimen of animal testing, quarantine procedures and veterinary staff vigilance, through which we seek to control the exposure of animal related disease or infections. We attempt to reduce these risks through the negotiation of contractual risk transfer provisions, such as indemnification provisions, limitations of liability, and client insurance requirements. 

Contractual risk transfer indemnifications generally do not protect us against liability arising from certain of our own actions, such as negligence or misconduct. We could be materially and adversely affected if we are required to pay damages or bear the costs of defending any claim that is outside any contractual indemnification provision, or if a party does not fulfill its indemnification obligations or the damage is beyond the scope or level of insurance coverage. We also often contractually indemnify our clients (subject to a limitation of liability), similar to the way they indemnify us, and we may be materially adversely affected if we have to fulfill our indemnity obligations. Furthermore, either we or a party required to indemnify us may not be able to maintain such insurance coverage (either at all or on terms acceptable to us).

The failure to successfully obtain, maintain and enforce intellectual property rights and defend against assertions of third parties to intellectual property rights could adversely affect us.

Many of our services, products and processes rely on intellectual property. In some cases, that intellectual property is owned by another party and licensed to us, sometimes exclusively. To protect our intellectual property rights, we primarily rely upon trade secret, patent, and copyright law, as well as contractual provisions relating to intellectual property ownership and control and confidentiality. Laws relating to intellectual property rights and contracts vary from country to country and are subject to change at any time. In addition, the agreements upon which we rely to protect our intellectual property might