FMC (FMC) Risk Analysis

We are involved from time to time in legal and regulatory proceedings, which may be material in the future. The outcome of proceedings, lawsuits and claims may differ from our expectations, leading us to change estimates of liabilities and related insurance receivables. Legal and regulatory proceedings, whether with or without merit, and associated internal investigations, may be time-consuming and expensive to prosecute, defend or conduct, may divert management's attention and other resources, inhibit our ability to sell our products, result in adverse judgments for damages, injunctive relief, penalties and fines, and otherwise negatively affect our business. See Note 1 "Principal Accounting Policies and Related Financial Information," Note 10 "Environmental Obligations" and Note 19 "Guarantees, Commitments and Contingencies" in the notes to our consolidated financial statements included in this Form 10-K for a description of our material pending legal proceedings.

Our ability to compete successfully depends in part upon our ability to maintain a superior technological capability and to continue to identify, develop and commercialize new and innovative, high value-added products for existing and future customers. Our investment in the discovery and development of new pesticidal active ingredients relies on discovery of new chemical molecules, biological strains or formulations. Such discovery processes depend on our scientists being able to find new molecules, strains and formulations, which are novel and outside of patents held by others, and such molecules/strains/formulations being efficacious against target pests. Our process also depends on our ability to develop those molecules, strains and formulations into new products without creating an undue risk to human health and the environment as well as meeting applicable regulatory criteria. The timeline from active ingredient discovery through full development and product launch averages 8 to 10 years depending on local regulatory requirements; the complexity and duration of developing new products create risks that product concepts may fail during development or, when launched, may not meet then-current market needs or competitive conditions.

Remote and other work arrangements may leave the Company more vulnerable to a cyberattack. Our systems and those of our vendors and third parties have in the past been, and will likely be in the future, subject to unauthorized access attempts. Implementing system updates or security patches in an untimely manner could leave our company exposed to security breaches. Unauthorized access to our networks or systems could disrupt our business operations and potentially result in failures or interruptions in our information systems, lockouts due to ransomware, or in the loss of assets and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. We engage in response planning, simulations, trainings, tabletop exercises, and other efforts to mitigate risks associated with cybersecurity. Breaches of our security measures or the accidental loss, inadvertent disclosure, or unapproved dissemination of proprietary, sensitive, confidential or personal information about the Company, our employees, our vendors, or our customers, could result in litigation, violations of applicable data privacy regulations, and liability for the Company. We have not experienced a significant or material impact from these events to date and we may need to expend significant resources to maintain or continue to mature our protective and preventative measures to stay abreast of the ever-changing cybersecurity threat landscape. We maintain a multifaceted cybersecurity program designed to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from a cybersecurity event. We ensure that the program is aligned with the National Institute of Standards and Technology ("NIST") Cybersecurity Framework. While we have taken measures to assess the requirements of, and to comply with the rapidly growing cybersecurity and data privacy regulations in multiple jurisdictions, these measures may be challenged by authorities that regulate cybersecurity and privacy-related compliance. We could incur significant expense in facilitating and responding to investigations and if the measures we have taken prove to be inadequate, we could face fines or penalties. This could damage our reputation, or otherwise harm our business, financial condition, or results of operations. We have been and will continue to be subject to advanced and persistent threats in the areas of information and operational technology security and fraud. We rely on information and operational technology systems, including tools that utilize artificial intelligence, to conduct our business. We seek to prevent unauthorized access, maintain the confidentiality and the integrity of our information and operational technology systems and strive to detect and investigate any cybersecurity incidents that may occur, however, despite these efforts and our operation of a cybersecurity program aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, we may, in some, cases, still be unaware of a particular incident or its magnitude and effects. We may face increased information technology security, continuity and fraud risks due in part to our business efforts to digitize certain operations at our manufacturing sites to increase efficiencies and to our continued reliance on many employees working remotely part of the time, which may create additional information security vulnerabilities and/or magnify the impact of any disruption in information technology systems. To the extent that any security breach impacts operations at our manufacturing sites, we may experience production or shipping disruptions. To the extent that any security breach results in inappropriate disclosure of our employees', customers' or vendors' confidential or personally identifiable information, we may incur liability or suffer reputational damage in the marketplace as a result. We maintain cyber/information security insurance, but any losses may be beyond the limits, or outside the coverage, of our policy. Information and operational security threats and methods of perpetrating fraud or misappropriating information are constantly evolving and becoming more complex, which increases the difficulty and expense of defending against these threats. In addition, the devotion of additional resources to the security of our information or operational technology systems in the future could significantly increase the cost of doing business or otherwise adversely impact our financial results.

Competition for our business includes not only generic suppliers of the same pesticidal active ingredients but also alternative proprietary pesticide chemistries and crop protection technologies that are bred into or applied onto seeds. Increased generic presence in agricultural chemical markets has been driven by the number of significant product patents and product data protections that have expired in the last decade, and this trend is expected to continue. There are also changing competitive dynamics in the agrochemical industry as some of our competitors have consolidated, resulting in them having greater scale and diversity, as well as market reach. Additionally, competition from generic agrochemical producers, particularly from producers based in China, has had and may continue to have a significant impact on our business and financial results, as a number of key product patents have expired in the last two decades. These competitive differences may not be overcome and may erode our business. Agriculture in many countries is changing and new technologies (e.g., precision pest prediction or application, data management) continue to emerge. At this time, the scope and potential impact of these technologies are largely unknown but could have the potential to disrupt our business.

In any given calendar quarter certain geographies may predominate the demand for our products in light of seasonal variations typically associated with the crop protection market and the geographic regions in which we operate. Unexpected market conditions in any such predominating geography, such as adverse weather, pest pressures, or other risks described herein, may impact our business if occurring during a calendar quarter in which such geography is predominating.