May 1, 2015

Dear Client/Stakeholder:

You may be hearing and reading stories concerning testing we did of flooring products for a client in Dallas, Texas.

We wanted you to hear directly from us what happened.

We were asked to test two flooring samples. We did.

The client did not tell us where the flooring was purchased or manufactured.

The client then violated our terms of agreement by releasing our report without proper approvals and inferring we knew the source of the flooring.

We did not.

All of our reports are clearly marked with this: “This report has been produced for the exclusive use of (client) and may not be reproduced except in its entirety, and only with the expressed, written approval of BMI. No one other than BMI’s client shall be entitled to rely on upon this report or the information contained herein.”

This client did not seek approval to release the data in the report.

We take the confidentiality of our client relationships very, very seriously. We are extremely unhappy this client violated that relationship. Therefore, we have terminated our relationship with this client and asked them to discontinue using this report and the data it contains.

If you have any questions, call me.

Travis R. Snapp
Managing Director, Benchmark International