Babcock & Wilcox Company (BW) Risk Factors

Our financial performance could be adversely affected due to our inability to meet customer demand for our products or services in the event of a material disruption at one of our manufacturing or services facilities. Equipment failures, natural disasters, power outages, fires, explosions, terrorism, adverse weather conditions, labor disputes or other influences could create a material disruption. Interruptions to production could increase our cost of sales, harm our reputation and adversely affect our ability to attract or retain our customers. Our business continuity plans may not be sufficient to address disruptions attributable to such risks. Any interruption in production capability could require us to make substantial capital expenditures to remedy the situation, which could adversely affect our financial position and results of operations.

We engineer, construct and perform services in, and provide products for, large industrial facilities where accidents or system failures can have significant consequences. Risks inherent in our operations include: - accidents resulting in injury or the loss of life or property;- environmental or toxic tort claims, including delayed manifestation claims for personal injury or loss of life;- pollution or other environmental mishaps;- adverse weather conditions;- mechanical failures;- property losses;- business interruption due to political action or other reasons; and - labor stoppages. Any accident or failure at a site where we have provided products or services could result in significant professional liability, product liability, warranty and other claims against us, regardless of whether our products or services caused the incident. We have been, and in the future, we may be, named as defendants in lawsuits asserting large claims as a result of litigation arising from events such as those listed above. Such claims may damage our reputation, regardless of whether we are ultimately deemed responsible. We endeavor to identify and obtain in established markets insurance agreements to cover significant risks and liabilities. Insurance against some of the risks inherent in our operations is either unavailable or available only at rates or on terms that we consider uneconomical. Also, catastrophic events customarily result in decreased coverage limits, more limited coverage, additional exclusions in coverage, increased premium costs and increased deductibles and self-insured retentions. Risks that we have frequently found difficult to cost-effectively insure against include, but are not limited to, business interruption, including interruptions related to health crises and other global events, property losses from wind, flood and earthquake events, war and confiscation or seizure of property in some areas of the world, pollution liability, liabilities related to occupational health exposures (including asbestos), the failure, misuse or unavailability of our information systems, the failure of security measures designed to protect our information systems from cybersecurity threats, and liability related to risk of loss of our work in progress and customer-owned materials in our care, custody and control. Depending on competitive conditions and other factors, we endeavor to obtain contractual protection against uninsured risks from our customers. When obtained, such contractual indemnification protection may not be as broad as we desire or may not be supported by adequate insurance maintained by the customer. Such insurance or contractual indemnity protection may not be sufficient or effective under all circumstances or against all hazards to which we may be subject. A successful claim for which we are not insured or for which we are underinsured could have a material adverse effect on us. Additionally, disputes with insurance carriers over coverage may affect the timing of cash flows and, if litigation with the carrier becomes necessary, an outcome unfavorable to us may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations. Moreover, certain accidents or failures, including accidents resulting in bodily injury or harm, could disqualify us from continuing business with customers, and any losses arising thereby may not be covered by insurance or other indemnification. Our wholly-owned captive insurance subsidiary provides workers' compensation, employer's liability, commercial general liability, and automotive liability insurance to support our operations. We may also have business reasons in the future to have our insurance subsidiary accept other risks which we cannot or do not wish to transfer to outside insurance companies. These risks may be considerable in any given year or cumulatively. Our insurance subsidiary has not provided significant amounts of insurance to unrelated parties. Claims as a result of our operations could adversely impact the ability of our insurance subsidiary to respond to all claims presented. Additionally, upon the February 22, 2006 effectiveness of the settlement relating to the Chapter 11 proceedings involving several of our subsidiaries, most of our subsidiaries contributed substantial insurance rights to the asbestos personal injury trust, including rights to (1) certain pre-1979 primary and excess insurance coverages and (2) certain of our 1979-1986 excess insurance coverage. These insurance rights provided coverage for, among other things, asbestos and other personal injury claims, subject to the terms and conditions of the policies. The contribution of these insurance rights was made in exchange for the agreement on the part of the representatives of the asbestos claimants, including the representative of future claimants, to the entry of a permanent injunction, pursuant to Section 524(g) of the United States Bankruptcy Code, to channel to the asbestos trust all asbestos-related claims against our subsidiaries and former subsidiaries arising out of, resulting from or attributable to their operations, and the implementation of related releases and indemnification provisions protecting those subsidiaries and their affiliates from future liability for such claims. Although we are not aware of any significant, unresolved claims against our subsidiaries and former subsidiaries that are not subject to the channeling injunction and that relate to the periods during which such excess insurance coverage related, with the contribution of these insurance rights to the asbestos personal injury trust, it is possible that we could have underinsured or uninsured exposure for non-derivative asbestos claims or other personal injury or other claims that would have been insured under these coverages had the insurance rights not been contributed to the asbestos personal injury trust.

As a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union governments, among others, have developed coordinated sanctions and export control measure packages. Based on the public statements to date, these packages may include: - comprehensive financial sanctions against Russian banks (including SWIFT cut off);- additional designations of Russian individuals with significant business interests and government connections;- designations of individuals and entities involved in Russian military activities;- enhanced export controls and trade sanctions targeting Russia's import of certain goods; and - closure of airspace to Russian aircraft. Moreover, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, there can be no certainty regarding whether such governments or other governments will impose additional sanctions, export controls or other economic or military measures against Russia. We do not currently have contracts directly with Russian entities or businesses and we currently do not conduct business in Russia directly. We believe our only involvement with Russia or Russian-entities, involves sales of our products by a wholly-owned Italian subsidiary to non-Russian counterparties who may resell our products to Russian entities or perform services in Russia using our products. The economic sanctions and export-control measures and the ongoing invasion of Ukraine could impact our subsidiary's rights and responsibilities under the contracts and could result in potential losses us. The impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including economic sanctions and export controls or additional war or military conflict, as well as potential responses to them by Russia, is currently unknown and could adversely affect our business, supply chain, partners or customers. In addition, the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict could lead to other disruptions, instability and volatility in global markets and industries that could negatively impact our operations.

We derive a substantial portion of our revenues from international operations, and we intend to continue to expand our international presence and customer base as part of our growth strategy. Our revenues from sales to customers located outside of the U.S. represented approximately 49%, 46% and 41% of total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. Operating in international markets requires significant resources and management attention and subjects us to political, economic and regulatory risks that are not generally encountered in our U.S. operations. These include, but are not limited to: - risks of war, terrorism and civil unrest;- expropriation, confiscation or nationalization of our assets;- renegotiation or nullification of our existing contracts;- changing political conditions and changing laws and policies affecting trade and investment;- overlap of different tax structures;- changes in foreign currency exchange rates; and - tariffs, price controls and trade agreements and disputes. Various foreign jurisdictions have laws limiting the right and ability of foreign subsidiaries and joint ventures to pay dividends and remit earnings to affiliated companies. Our international operations sometimes face the additional risks of fluctuating currency values, hard currency shortages and controls of foreign currency exchange. If we continue to expand our business globally, our success will depend, in part, on our ability to anticipate and effectively manage these and other risks. These and other factors may have a material impact on our international operations or our business as a whole.

Some of our competitors or potential competitors have greater financial or other resources than we have and in some cases are government supported. Our operations may be adversely affected if our current competitors or new market entrants introduce new products or services with better features, performance, prices or other characteristics than those of our products and services. Furthermore, we operate in industries where capital investment is critical. We may not be able to obtain as much purchasing and borrowing leverage and access to capital for investment as other companies, which may impair our ability to compete against competitors or potential competitors.

Our ability to develop innovative new products can affect our competitive position and often requires the investment of significant resources. Difficulties or delays in research, development, production or commercialization of new products, or failure to gain market acceptance of new products and technologies, may reduce future sales and adversely affect our competitive position. There can be no assurance that we will have sufficient resources to make such investments, that we will be able to make the technological advances necessary to maintain competitive advantages or that we can recover major research and development expenses. If we fail to make innovations, launch products with quality problems, experience development cost overruns, or the market does not accept our new products, then our financial condition, results of operations, cash flows and liquidity could be adversely affected.

Our success depends, in part, on our ability to protect our proprietary information and other intellectual property. Our intellectual property could be stolen, challenged, invalidated, circumvented or rendered unenforceable. In addition, effective intellectual property protection may be limited or unavailable in some foreign countries where we operate. Our failure to protect our intellectual property rights may result in the loss of valuable technologies or adversely affect our competitive business position. We rely significantly on proprietary technology, information, processes and know-how that are not subject to patent or copyright protection. We seek to protect this information through trade secret or confidentiality agreements with our employees, consultants, subcontractors or other parties, as well as through other security measures. These agreements and security measures may be inadequate to deter or prevent misappropriation of our confidential information. In the event of an infringement of our intellectual property rights, a breach of a confidentiality agreement or divulgence of proprietary information, we may not have adequate legal remedies to protect our intellectual property. Litigation to determine the scope of intellectual property rights, even if ultimately successful, could be costly and could divert management's attention away from other aspects of our business. In addition, our trade secrets may otherwise become known or be independently developed by competitors. In some instances, we have augmented our technology base by licensing the proprietary intellectual property of third parties. In the future, we may not be able to obtain necessary licenses on commercially reasonable terms, which could have a material adverse effect on our operations.

We rely on information systems, including the Internet, to process, transmit and store electronic sensitive and confidential information, to manage and support a variety of business processes and activities and to comply with regulatory, legal and tax requirements. While we maintain some of our critical information systems, we are also dependent on third parties to provide important information technology services relating to, among other things, human resources, electronic communications and certain finance functions. We face various threats to our information systems, including cyber threats, ransomware attacks, phishing attacks, threats to the physical security of our facilities and infrastructure from natural or man-made incidents or disasters, threats from insider and terrorist acts, as well as the potential for business disruptions associated with these threats. We have been, and will likely continue to be, subject to cybersecurity threats and other attempts to threaten our information systems. A cybersecurity incident could include attempts to gain unauthorized access to our proprietary information and personal data that we process and maintain, attacks from malicious third parties using sophisticated, targeted methods to circumvent firewalls, encryption and other security defenses, including hacking, fraud, phishing scams or other forms of deception. Although we utilize a combination of tailored and industry standard security measures and technology to monitor and mitigate these threats, we cannot guarantee that these measures and technology will be sufficient to prevent current and future threats to our information systems from materializing. Furthermore, we may have little or no input into security measures employed by third-party service providers, which could ultimately prove to be a vector of a cybersecurity threat or cybersecurity incident. If these information systems are damaged, intruded upon, attacked, shutdown or cease to function properly, whether by misconfiguration, planned upgrades, force majeure events, telecommunication failures, malware or viruses, or other cybersecurity incidents and our business continuity plans do not mitigate the issues in a timely manner, the services we provide to customers, the value of our investment in research and development efforts and other intellectual property, our product sales, our ability to comply with regulations related to information contained on our information technology systems, our financial condition, results of operations and stock price may be materially and adversely affected, and we could experience delays in reporting our financial results. In addition, there is a risk of business interruption, litigation with third parties, reputational damage from security breaches involves personal data or loss of confidential information or the software we use being compromised, and increased cybersecurity protection and remediation costs due to the increasing sophistication and proliferation of threats. The costs related to cyber or other security threats or disruptions may not be fully insured or indemnified by other means. To address risks to our information systems, we continue to invest in our systems and training of our personnel. As necessary, we replace and/or upgrade financial, human resources and other information systems. These activities subject us to inherent costs and risks associated with replacing and updating these systems, including potential disruption of our internal control structure, substantial capital expenditures, demands on management time and other risks of delays or difficulties in transitioning to new systems or of integrating new systems into our current systems. Our systems implementations and upgrades may not result in productivity improvements at the levels anticipated, or at all. In addition, the implementation of new technology systems may cause disruptions in our business operations. Such disruption and any other information system disruptions, and our ability to mitigate those disruptions, if not anticipated and appropriately mitigated, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations and stock price.