11.  OTHER COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES

 

Litigation.  On May 9, 2016, the Company was named as a defendant in a breach of contract action related to our termination of an insulation supply agreement with plaintiff Owens Corning Sales, LLC. The complaint seeks damages and declaratory relief. We have counterclaimed for breach of contract related to Owens Corning’s failure to honor the supply agreement’s pricing provisions. The case is pending in the Court of Common Pleas for Lucas County, Ohio and a jury trial is presently scheduled for October 2017. We are defending this lawsuit vigorously. However, at this stage of the litigation, we are unable to predict the ultimate outcome or estimate a range of reasonably possible losses, if any.

 

We are subject to certain other claims, charges, litigation, and other proceedings in the ordinary course of our business, including those arising from or related to contractual matters, intellectual property, personal injury, environmental matters, product liability, product recalls, construction defects, insurance coverage, personnel and employment disputes, antitrust, and other matters, including class actions.  We believe we have adequate defenses in these other matters and we do not believe that the ultimate outcome of these other matters will have a material adverse effect on us.  However, there is no assurance that we will prevail in any of these pending matters, and we could in the future incur judgments, enter into settlements of claims, or revise our expectations regarding the outcome of these matters, which could materially impact our liquidity and our results of operations.

 

Other Matters.  We enter into contracts, which include customary indemnities that are standard for the industries in which we operate.  Such indemnities include, among other things, customer claims against builders for issues relating to our products and workmanship.  In conjunction with divestitures and other transactions, we occasionally provide customary indemnities relating to various items including, among others: the enforceability of trademarks; legal and environmental issues; and asset valuations.  We evaluate the probability that we may incur liabilities under these customary indemnities and appropriately record an estimated liability when deemed probable.

We occasionally use performance bonds to ensure completion of our work on certain larger customer contracts that can span multiple accounting periods.  Performance bonds generally do not have stated expiration dates; rather, we are released from the bonds as the contractual performance is completed.  We also have bonds outstanding for licensing and insurance.  The following table summarizes our outstanding bonds, in thousands:

 

 

Our rental expense was as follows, in thousands:

 

 

Future minimum lease payments at December 31, 2016 were as follows, in thousands: