Billet labs has come out and said that LTT has suggested they could get the cooler back for them, and billet labs declined and said they would just take the reimbursement.
They said their reasoning for that include (they said more, but just a few brief reasons) the fact that they can’t know if it’s still in the condition required, and if not, how much time and money it would take to repair it
they don’t know if it would have all the various pieces still attached, once again, not knowing how much time or money it would cost to replace those
they’ve already begun work on recreating the prototype
they’ve confirmed it didn’t go to a competitor, so less worries about ip issues
Finally and the biggest thing to me that I was unaware of before reading their statement, they sent LTT a 3090ti to along with the block to test it, LTT then proceeded to lose it (which is why they used the wrong card in the video) and just recently found it, which meant LTT had not only their block but a 3090ti for 9 weeks so they didn’t know if LTT could get it back how quickly they would send it to Billet.