ANNUAL REPORT 2011 - Kuehne + Nagel

102
Consolidated Financial Statements 2011 _ _ _ _ _ _ Other Notes
45 Contingent liabilities
As of year-end the following contingent liabilities existed:
CHF million Dec. 31, 2011 Dec. 31, 2010
Guarantees in favour
of customers and others
Contingency under
2 10
unrecorded claims – 3
Total 2 13
Some Group companies are defendants in various court cases.
Based on respective legal advice, the management is of the
opinion that the outcome of those proceedings will have
no effect on the financial situation of the Group beyond the
existing provision for pending claims (refer to note 41) of
CHF 75 million (2010: CHF 77 million).
From October 2007 and thereafter various competition authorities
have carried out an inspection at a number of international
freight forwarding companies. The inspection encompassed
amongst others the Group companies in Switzerland, the USA,
the UK, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Canada,
Austria and France. The investigations relate to alleged anticompetitive
activities in the area of national and international
freight forwarding. In the above context, class action law suits
were filed in the USA against Kuehne + Nagel Inc. and Kuehne +
Nagel International AG, Switzerland, and other competitors in
the international freight forwarding industry.
In the US competition investigations, the competent District
Court on November 11, 2011, approved the terms of the plea
agreement, which the Group had entered into with the Department
of Justice. Whereas the investigation of the Department of
Justice therewith is closed the related civil class action is still
pending; a provision including legal expenses has been set up,
recognising that the final amount required to pay all claims and
fines is subject to uncertainty (see notes 41 and 51).
The other cases, including investigations of the EU competition
authority, are ongoing and queries by the competition authorities
have been received and answered by the Group entities in
order to cooperate in the pending investigations. No decisions
have been received by the respective authorities so far, and
therefore it is currently not possible to reliably estimate a potential
financial impact of these cases. Consequently, no provision
or quantification of the contingent liability for these cases was
made in the Consolidated Financial Statements 2011.
46 Other financial commitments
The Group operates a number of warehouse facilities under operating
lease contracts. The lease contracts run for a fixed period
and none of the lease contracts includes contingent rentals.