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Wright Medical Group, Inc. Resolves Litigation with Former Employees in Toulon, France

^{Published on 2010-11-17 13:05:42 - Market Wire}
 

ARLINGTON, Tenn.--([ BUSINESS WIRE ])--Wright Medical Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: WMGI), a global orthopaedic medical device company and a leading provider of surgical solutions for the foot and ankle market, today announced the settlement of all litigation with its former employees in Toulon, France.

Wright has entered into settlement agreements with each of its former employees in Toulon, France who had filed claims to challenge the economic justification for their dismissal following the closure of the companya™s Toulon, France facility. Under the settlement agreements, Wright will pay the former employees an aggregate amount of approximately $4.5 million, plus any additional amounts that may be payable under French law, including payments for unemployment and social security. The company had previously paid approximately $1.3 million of this amount. The remaining $3.2 million is expected to be paid during the fourth quarter of 2010.

Wright had previously recorded a provision related to this litigation. The remaining provision for these cases totaled approximately $3.4 million, which will be sufficient to pay the remaining amount under the settlement agreements, as well as the additional amounts payable under French law. Therefore, the settlement of this litigation will not have a material impact to the companya™s results of operations.

These settlements close all outstanding litigation related to the closure of the companya™s facility in Toulon, France, and reflect the completion of activity associated with its French restructuring efforts.

Wright Medical Group, Inc. is a global orthopaedic medical device company and a leading provider of surgical solutions for the foot and ankle market. The company specializes in the design, manufacture and marketing of devices and biologic products for extremity, hip and knee repair and reconstruction. The company has been in business for 60 years and markets its products in over 60 countries worldwide. For more information about Wright, visit the companya™s website at [ www.wmt.com ].

This press release contains aforward-looking statementsa as defined under U.S. federal securities laws.These statements reflect managementa™s current knowledge, assumptions, beliefs, estimates, and expectations and express managementa™s current views of future performance, results, and trends and may be identified by their use of terms such as aanticipate,a abelieve,a acould,a aestimate,a aexpect,a aintend,a amay,a aplan,a apredict,a aproject,a awill,a and other similar terms.Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to materially differ from those described in the forward-looking statements.Such risks and uncertainties include the impact of Wright's settlement of the federal investigation into Wright's consulting arrangements with orthopaedic surgeons relating to its hip and knee products in the United States, including Wright's compliance with a Deferred Prosecution Agreement through September2011 and a Corporate Integrity Agreement through September2015, and those risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (including those described in Item 1A of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009, under the heading, aRisk Factorsa and in Item 1A of Part II of our 10-Qs filed during 2010) and the final determination of the additional amounts payable under French law.Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.Such statements are made as of the date of this press release, and we undertake no obligation to update such statements after this date.