Apple’s ex-sapphire supplier caved to its former partner because “protracted litigation against one of the largest corporations in the world with over $100 billion of cash would be challenging and expensive,” court documents revealed.

In papers filed late Monday with a federal bankruptcy court, GT Advanced Technologies, of Merrimack, N.H., said it had settled its dispute with Apple because doing otherwise would have let the Cupertino, Calif. company smother it with “liquidated damages claims for in excess of $1 billion.”

GT and Apple struck a deal last year under which the former would produce large quantities of scratch-resistant sapphire at an Arizona plant, with the latter agreeing to pre-pay $578 million so that GT could equip the factory with the necessary sapphire-growing furnaces.

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