Company: NC
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000789933-25-000006
Chunk: 87

Company: NACCO INDUSTRIES INC
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 87
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 comply with regulatory, investor or stakeholder expectations and standards, which are evolving, or which are perceived to have not responded appropriately, may suffer from reputational damage and the business, financial condition, and/or stock price of such a company could be materially and adversely affected.

We may be subject to litigation seeking to hold energy companies accountable for the effects of climate change.

Increasing attention to climate change risk has also resulted in a recent trend of governmental investigations and private litigation by local and state governmental agencies as well as private plaintiffs in an effort to hold energy companies accountable for the effects of climate change. Other public nuisance lawsuits have been brought in the past against power, coal, oil and gas companies alleging that their operations are contributing to climate change. We could incur substantial legal costs associated with defending such lawsuits in the future. Government entities in certain states have brought similar claims seeking to hold a wide variety of companies that produce fossil fuels liable for the alleged impacts of emissions attributable to those fuels or for other grounds related to climate change, such as improper disclosure of climate change risks. Those lawsuits allege damages as a result of climate change and the plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages and abatement under various tort theories. We have not been made a party to these suits, but it is possible that we could be included in similar future lawsuits initiated by state and local governments as well as private claimants.

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Our business could suffer if NACCO’s information technology systems are disrupted, cease to operate effectively or if we experience a security breach, a cyber incident or cyber attack.

Like many other companies, we are the target of malicious cyber attack attempts in the normal course of business. Cybersecurity incidents involving businesses and other institutions are on the rise. Cyber threats are rapidly evolving and those threats and the means for obtaining access to information in digital and other storage media are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Cyber threats and cyber attackers can be sponsored by nation states or sophisticated criminal organizations or be the work of independent hackers. 

As cyber threats evolve and become more difficult to detect and successfully defend against, one or more cyber attacks might defeat our, or a third-party service provider's, security measures in the future. Employee error or other irregularities may also result in a failure of security measures and a breach of information systems. Moreover, hardware, software or applications we may use have inherent defects of design, manufacture or operations or could be inadvertently or intentionally implemented or used in a manner that could compromise information security. 

A security breach and loss of information may not be discovered for a significant period of time after it