潜水简介：
- 超越肉类同意支付515,000美元的律师费，并将其公司治理更改为解决股东提起的合并诉讼关于一场正在进行的法庭之战，该公司正在与前共同制造商Don Lee Farms作战。在加利福尼亚高等法院仍在审理肉和唐·李农场之间的基本争议。
- 作为定居点的一部分，超越肉将在其董事会中增加风险委员会这将检查公司面向公司面临的所有法律，道德，运营和战略风险。现在，超越肉类董事会的三分之二将由独立于公司的人组成。有关公司公司举报人计划和公司治理的信息也将发布在其网站上。
- 这sprawling legal battlekicked off in 2017, when Don Lee Farms accused Beyond Meat of stealing its trade secrets, providing unusable and unsafe raw materials for manufacturing, failing to compensate Don Lee for products it had made, and not ensuring it had operational equipment and personnel to make its products. Beyond Meat filed a counter suit against Don Lee in 2020. A trial is set for next month.
Dive Insight:
A side chapter of Beyond Meat's battle with Don Lee Farms appears like it is about to end with a relatively small financial impact on the company. In documents posted to its investor relations website after business hours on Friday, Beyond Meat stressed this is not a class-action style settlement, so individual shareholders will not be able to get money from it. (Named plaintiffs, however, may apply for $2,000 awards.) Paying for plaintiffs' attorneys' fees and making some board changes is a relatively easy way to end this litigation. All parties agreed to the settlement — which ends the litigation and is not an admission of wrongdoing — in January. The court gave it preliminary approval last month, and a hearing for final approval is scheduled for July.
Adding risk management committees to corporate boards has become a popular strategy to help companies realize and mitigate the challenges before them. In light of the tumultuous business climate of the past two years, punctuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the need for specialized risk committees已经变得显而易见了，业务战略顾问说。
Although a Beyond Meat risk committee likely would not have prevented this lawsuit from taking place — it was filed two years before the company2019年公开并涉及一家企业早期的合同纠纷 - 拥有它可能是无价的。基于植物的食物是一个天生的风险空间。虽然它在主流中变得更加接受，并在杂货店和食品服务中获得广泛的可用性和各种品牌，但former meteoric growth is slowing。包括超越肉类在内的公司面临着扩大市场份额和转换新消费者的新挑战。除了肉类之外，创始人兼首席执行官伊桑·布朗（Ethan Brown供应链和大流行消费者行为因素，但是让投资者拥有一个更独立的董事会成员小组也可能会感到安慰。
目前尚不清楚独立董事会成员的要求是否会改变超越肉类的当前运营结构。目前，布朗（也是董事会主席）是唯一在公司业务中扮演直接角色的成员。但是，该要求可以确保投资者将来将更加独立地管理公司。
But this settlement is just a small step. There still may be a lot of bitter — and potentially expensive — fighting to come between Beyond Meat and Don Lee Farms. A hearing is scheduled this week on a motion dealing with the claim that Beyond Meat stole Don Lee's trade secrets, and the trial is set to begin next month. In its3月提交的年度报告, Beyond Meat said it would "vigorously defend" the company and its current and former employees implicated in the dispute. However, in the case that Beyond Meat is not victorious, the company could be required to pay steep damages. Beyond Meat couldn't estimate how much that might be in its annual report, but it could be significant — making right now a very good time to settle the investor litigation.
