Any violation of the Bribery Act, FCPA or other applicable anti-bribery, anti-corruption laws and anti-money laundering laws including Trade Control laws could result in whistleblower complaints, adverse media coverage, investigations, imposition of significant legal fees, loss of export privileges, severe criminal or civil sanctions or suspension or debarment from government contracts, substantial diversion of management’s attention, drop in stock price or overall adverse consequences to our business, all of which may have an adverse effect on our reputation, business, financial condition, and results of operations.
The potential impact of “Brexit” could have a material adverse effect on our business.
The U.K.’s membership of the European Union ceased on January 1, 2021. There are significant uncertainties in relation to what the impact will be on the fiscal, monetary and regulatory landscape in the U.K., including among other things, the U.K.’s tax system, the conduct of cross-border business and export and import tariffs. There is also uncertainty in relation to how, when and to what extent these developments will impact on the economy in the U.K., the future growth of its various industries, on levels of investor activity and confidence, on market performance and on exchange rates.
While we did not experience any significant adverse impacts on our business in 2022 as a result of the U.K.’s exit from the European Union, it is not possible to predict fully the future effects of this transition. Any of these risks, taken singularly or in the aggregate could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations.
Our business may be affected by litigation and government investigations.
We may from time to time receive inquiries and subpoenas and other types of information requests from government authorities and others and we may become subject to claims and other actions related to our business activities. While the ultimate outcome of investigations, inquiries, information requests and legal proceedings is difficult to predict, defense of litigation claims can be expensive, time-consuming, and distracting, and adverse resolutions or settlements of those matters may result in, among other things, modification of our business practices, costs and significant payments, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects.
Security breaches, computer malware, computer hacking attacks and other security incidents could harm our business, reputation, brand and operating results.
Security incidents have become more prevalent across industries and may occur on our systems. Security incidents may be caused by, or result in but are not limited to, security breaches, computer malware or malicious software, computer hacking, unauthorized access to confidential information, denial of service attacks, security system control failures in our own systems or from vendors we use, email phishing, software vulnerabilities, social engineering, sabotage and drive-by downloads. Such security incidents, whether intentional or otherwise, may result from actions of hackers, criminals, nation states, vendors, employees or customers.
We rely on our internal technology systems for development, marketing, operational, support and sales activities. A disruption or failure of these systems or in those of our external service providers, in the event of a major storm, earthquake, fire, telecommunications failure, cyber-attack, terrorist attack or other catastrophic event could cause system interruptions, reputational harm, delays in our product development and loss of critical data and could materially and adversely affect our ability to operate our business.
We may experience disruptions, data loss, outages and other performance problems on our systems due to service attacks, unauthorized access or other security related incidents. Any security breach or loss of system control caused by hacking, which involves efforts to gain unauthorized access to information or systems, or to cause intentional malfunctions or loss, modification or corruption of data, software, hardware or other computer equipment and the inadvertent transmission of computer malware could harm our business.
In addition, our software stores and transmits customers’ confidential business information in our facilities and on our equipment, networks, corporate systems and in the cloud. Security incidents could expose us to litigation, remediation costs, increased costs for security measures, loss of revenue, damage to