Faro Technologies (FARO) Risk Factors

General inflation in the United States, Europe and other geographies has risen to levels not experienced in recent decades. General inflation, including rising prices for our raw materials and other inputs as well as rising salaries negatively impact our business by increasing our operating expenses. A period of a rising rate of inflation also negatively impacts our business by decreasing the capital for our customers to deploy to purchase our products and services. Inflation may cause our customers to reduce or delay orders for our goods and services thereby causing a decrease in sales of our products and services.

We are significantly vulnerable to the economic effects of pandemics and other public health crises, including the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak that has surfaced in every country of our global operating footprint. The impact of COVID-19 or COVID-19 variants including the severity of other additional periods of increases or spikes in the number of cases in areas in which we operate, disruptions to our business, changes in consumer behaviors, restrictions on individual and business activities, and financial liquidity concerns, has created significant volatility in the macro-economic environment and initially led to reduced economic activity. There have been and continues to be material actions taken by global government authorities to contain and slow the spread of COVID-19, including travel bans, quarantines, and stay-at-home orders to restrict activities for individuals and businesses. While the effects of COVID-19 are lessening, the continued impact of COVID-19 is uncertain and the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic will depend, among other factors, on the continued effectiveness of vaccines and vaccine boosters. Most of our non-manufacturing and technical service personnel continue to work from home, which began in March 2020. Our global manufacturing operations, including facilities located in Pennsylvania, Florida and Germany continue to be designated as essential business and therefore continue to operate. To protect our employees in facilities in which our teams operate, we have employed preventative measures to ensure the health and safety of our employees. We ensure our preventative measures are in compliance with the most recent local governmental regulations and requirements. The full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our financial condition and results of operations will depend on future events and developments, such as the duration and magnitude of the outbreak and future possible subsequent outbreaks. The impacts of the pandemic include, but are not limited to, the following: - potential production slowdowns of our factories in impacted countries or potential supply and distribution chain disruption, which could in the future result in increased costs and decreased efficiency, and which have and could impact our ability to respond to rapid changes in demand;- the demand for our products and services, and whether the pandemic leads to continued recessionary conditions in any of our key markets, including potential trade customer financial restructuring or insolvency and increases in uncollectible accounts receivable balances with our trade customer base; Potential future impairment in value of our tangible or intangible assets could be recorded as a result of weaker economic conditions;- potential significant disruption of global financial markets, which could have a negative impact on our ability to access capital in the future, and which has, together with operational impacts noted above, necessitated certain recent liquidity creation and preservation actions as a precautionary measure;- fluctuations in forecasted earnings before tax and corresponding volatility in our effective tax rate;- potential operational disruption if key employees terminate their employment or become ill, as well as diversion of our management team's attention from non-COVID-19 related matters; and - potential investigations, legal claims or litigation against us for actions we have taken or may take, or decisions we have made or may make, as a consequence of the pandemic; As such, the ultimate impact on our financial condition and results of operations cannot be determined at this time. We have been adversely affected and continue to expect our business, financial condition and results of operations to be adversely affected. In addition, we cannot predict the impact that COVID-19 will have on our trade customers, suppliers, consumers, and each of their financial conditions; however, any material effect on these parties could adversely impact us. The impact of the ongoing COVID-19 may also exacerbate other risks discussed for the year ended December 31, 2022, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Our operations are subject to numerous governmental laws and regulations, including those governing antitrust and competition, the environment, collection, recycling, treatment and disposal of covered electronic products and components, import and export of products, currency conversions and repatriation, taxation of foreign earnings and use of local employees and suppliers. An inability to comply with these regulations or obtain any necessary certifications in a timely manner could have an adverse effect on our business and results of operations. Manufacturers of electrical goods are subject to the European Union's RoHS2 and WEEE directives, which took effect during 2006. RoHS2 prohibits the use of lead, mercury and certain other specified substances in electronics products, and WEEE makes producers of electrical goods financially responsible for specified collection, recycling, treatment, and disposal of covered electronic products and components. While we currently hold RoHS2 and WEEE registration and believe we are in compliance with the directives of the European Union, including the RoHS2 directive, parallel initiatives are being proposed in other jurisdictions, including several states in the United States and China. If we do not comply with any such initiatives, our sales and results of operations could be materially impacted. In addition, a number of data protection laws impact, or may impact, the manner in which we collect, process and transfer personal data. Most notably, the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation ("EU GDPR") and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 (collectively, the "UK GDPR") (the EU GDPR and UK GDPR together referred to as the "GDPR"). The GDPR imposes comprehensive data privacy compliance obligations in relation to our collection, processing, sharing, disclosure, transfer and other use of data relating to an identifiable living individual or "personal data", including a principal of accountability and the obligation to demonstrate compliance through policies, procedures, training and audit. Further, a number of other regions where we do business, including the United States, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America, have enacted or are considering new data protection regulations that may impact our business activities that involve the processing of personal data. For example, in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission and state regulators enforce a variety of data privacy issues. In addition, certain states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia and Utah, have adopted new or modified privacy and security laws and regulations that may apply to our business. These laws are prompting a wave of similar legislative developments in other states in the United States, which creates the potential for a patchwork of overlapping but different state laws. In order to comply with the varying state laws around data breaches, we must maintain adequate security measures, which require significant investments in resources and ongoing attention. In addition, U.S. and international laws that have been applied to protect user privacy (including laws regarding unfair and deceptive practices in the U.S. and GDPR in the EU and UK) may be subject to evolving interpretations or applications in light of privacy developments. For example, evolution of laws governing the cross-border transfer of data, such the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU") invalidating the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield in 2020. The CJEU noted that reliance on the standard contractual clauses alone may not necessarily be sufficient in all circumstances and that transfers must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, creates additional uncertainty around the legality and logistics of such transfers. The European Commission has since published revised standard contractual clauses for data transfers from the EEA: the revised clauses have been mandatory for relevant transfers since September 27, 2021; existing standard contractual clauses arrangements were required to be migrated to the revised clauses by December 27, 2022. We have or are in the process of implementing revised standard contractual clauses for existing intragroup, customer and vendor arrangements. In addition, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office has published new data transfer standard contracts for transfers from the UK under the UK GDPR. This new documentation was mandatory for relevant data transfers from September 21, 2022; existing standard contractual clauses arrangements must be migrated to the new documentation by March 21, 2024. We will be required to implement the latest UK data transfer documentation for data transfers subject to the UK GDPR, in relation to relevant existing contracts and certain additional contractual arrangements, within the relevant time frames. Further, European court and regulatory decisions subsequent to the CJEU decision have taken a restrictive approach to international data transfers. Therefore, as the enforcement landscape further develops, and supervisory authorities issue further guidance on international data transfers, we could suffer additional costs, complaints and/or regulatory investigations or fines; we may have to stop using certain tools and vendors and make other operational changes. More generally, compliance with enhanced data protection laws requires additional resources and efforts, and noncompliance with personal data protection regulations could result in increased regulatory enforcement and significant monetary fines and costs. Failure to comply with the GDPR could result in penalties for noncompliance. Since we are subject to the supervision of relevant data protection authorities under both the EU GDPR and the UK GDPR, we could be fined under each of those regimes independently in respect of the same breach. Penalties for certain breaches are up to the greater of EUR 20 million/ GBP 17.5 million or 4% of our global annual turnover. In addition to fines, a breach of the GDPR may result in regulatory investigations, reputational damage, orders to cease/ change our data processing activities, enforcement notices, assessment notices (for a compulsory audit) and/ or civil claims (including class actions). Outside of the EU and the UK other data privacy regimes may impose similar fines and consequences on the same or greater scale.

Our balance sheet includes $12.5 million in deferred tax assets. On a quarterly basis, we assess our ability to realize our deferred tax assets to ensure if any valuation allowances are required. The ultimate realization of our deferred tax assets is dependent upon our ability to generate future taxable income in the jurisdiction during the periods in which those deferred tax assets would be deductible. We continue to monitor whether any valuation allowances are necessary, and if we are required to establish a valuation allowance against any of our deferred tax assets, it could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.

From time to time, we receive notices from others claiming that we infringed on their intellectual property rights. Resolving these claims may require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements on unfavorable terms, require us to stop selling or to redesign affected products, or require us to pay damages. In addition, from time to time, we are involved in intellectual property lawsuits. We could, in the future, incur judgments or enter into settlements of lawsuits and claims that could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition. Any litigation or interference proceedings, regardless of their outcome, may be costly and may require significant time and attention of our management and technical personnel.

Our measurement systems compete in the broad and highly competitive market for measurement devices for manufacturing and industrial applications, which, in addition to portable articulated arms, laser trackers, 3D imaging and laser scanner products, consist of fixed-base CMMs, templates and go/no-go gages, check fixtures, handheld measurement tools, and various categories of surveying equipment. In the FaroArm, FARO ScanArm, FARO Laser TrackerTM, and FARO Focus product lines, we compete primarily with Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence, a division of Hexagon AB; Automated Precision, Inc.; Artec Europe, S.a.r.l.; Leica Geosystems AG, a division of Hexagon AB; Creaform, a division of Ametek; and Trimble Inc. In the FARO Laser Projector product line, we compete primarily with Virtek Vision International, a division of Gerber Technology LLC. In our cloud based virtual reality capturing software, HolobuilderTM product line, we compete primarily with OpenSpace and StructionSite. We also compete in these product lines with a number of other smaller companies. We compete on the basis of technical innovation, product performance, quality and price with respect to all of our products. We will be required to make continued investments in technology and product development to maintain the technological advantage that we believe we currently have over our competition. Some of our competitors possess substantially greater financial, technical, and marketing resources than we possess. Moreover, we cannot be certain that our technology or our product development efforts will allow us to successfully compete as the industry evolves. If the market for our measurement systems expands, additional competition may emerge and our existing and future competitors may commit more resources to the markets in which we participate. Our results of operations could be adversely affected by pricing strategies pursued by competitors or technological or product developments by competitors.