Staar Surgical, a developer, manufacturer and marketer of minimally invasive ophthalmic products, has reported that Staar and all other parties to the matters Parallax Medical Systems v. Staar Surgical and Scott C Moody v. Staar Surgical have entered into a Stipulation for Settlement that globally resolves all pending disputes among them.
The settlement satisfies in full the $4.9m judgment against Staar in the Parallax matter and the $6.5m judgment against Staar in the Moody matter. In exchange for complete mutual releases, the stipulation provides for payment by Staar of $4m as its contribution to the global settlement. The funds will be paid from the deposit made by Staar with the court in June 2009. The balance of those funds, approximately $3.4m, will be returned to Staar.
Staar expects the settlement to result in positive adjustments to preliminary financial information previously provided for the fiscal year ended January 1, 2010. In particular, Staar’s Form 12b-25 filed on March 18, 2010 reported that it believed that the report of its independent registered public accounting firm included in its audited financial statements would again include an explanatory paragraph indicating that substantial doubt exists regarding the Staar’s ability to continue as a going concern.
Staar believes that the settlement will resolve the doubt and that it will receive an unqualified opinion on its audited financial statements. Staar also expects that its audited consolidated statements of operations and balance sheet will reflect positive adjustments from the preliminary financial information included in its press release and recent Form 8-K/A.