Company: WKC
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-007620
Chunk: 157

Company: WORLD KINECT CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 157
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, business, stock price or access to capital. Non-compliance with any applicable laws, regulations or standards may also result in potential cost increases, litigation, fines, penalties, sales restrictions or loss of customers.

Our business is subject to extensive laws and regulations, including environmental protection, health and safety, that can result in material costs and liabilities.

We are required to comply with extensive and complex laws and other regulations at the international, federal, state/provincial and local government levels in the countries in which we operate. See Part I. Item 1. – Business for additional information about laws and regulations applicable to our business. Laws and regulations relating to environmental protection and occupational safety and health can be particularly complex and can impose strict liability on us for remediation of spills and releases of oil and hazardous substances without regard to whether we were negligent or at fault. Violations of these laws and regulations, or any future environmental law or regulation, could result in significant liability, including administrative, civil or criminal penalties, fines, injunctions, or the suspension or termination of our operations at an affected area. We may also be held responsible for remediation costs for natural resource damages as well as third-party damages. In our marine segment, we utilize fuel delivery barges and store and transfer refined products adjacent to water, thereby potentially subjecting us to strict, joint, and potentially unlimited liability for removal costs and other consequences of where a spill is into navigable or inland waters, along shorelines or in the exclusive economic zone of the U.S. Any of these occurrences and any resulting negative media coverage could have a material adverse effect on our stock price and on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.

In addition, increasingly stringent U.S. and foreign environmental laws and regulations have resulted and will likely continue to increase our operating costs. For example, compliance with existing and future laws that regulate the delivery of fuel by barge, truck, vessel, pipeline or railcar; or fuel storage terminals or underground storage tanks that we own, lease or operate may require significant capital expenditures and increased operating and maintenance costs, particularly as we acquire businesses with more physical assets. In addition, continuing changes in environmental laws and regulations may also require capital expenditures by our customers or otherwise increase our customers' operating costs, which could in turn, reduce the demand for our products and services or impact the pricing or availability of the products we sell. Although the ultimate impact of any regulations is difficult to predict accurately, the occurrence of any of the foregoing could have an adverse effect on our