By Song Sang-ho and Kim Dong-hyun
WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (Yonhap) — Westinghouse Electric Co. has announced that it will be appealing a district court’s decision from Monday which dismissed the firm’s lawsuit against Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO). The lawsuit was filed in October of last year in an attempt to prevent the two South Korean state-run companies from exporting nuclear power plants.
David Durham, the president of Energy Systems at Westinghouse, said in a statement to Yonhap News Agency that the court’s decision merely “holds that export control enforcement resides with the U.S. government.” He added that Westinghouse intends to appeal the decision.
Westinghouse argued that the use of its intellectual property outside of Korea is the “principal” dispute between the parties. The firm also noted that the court’s ruling has no bearing on the ongoing arbitration proceeding against KEPCO/KHNP involving KEPCO/KHNP’s non-allowed transfer of Westinghouse’s intellectual property outside Korea.
The U.S. energy firm had initially filed the lawsuit to stop the Korean companies from transferring technical information on reactor designs, which it claims have been licensed by it, to Poland and other countries under a U.S. export control regulation, called Part 810. The defendants have contended that the Atomic Energy Act does not contemplate “private” enforcement and delegates to the attorney general the “exclusive authority” to enforce relevant provisions.
The dispute has raised questions about whether South Korea’s export of reactors that its companies have domestically mastered with the initial technological assistance from the U.S. firm should be subject to U.S. export control regulations.
This file photo, provided by Korea Electric Power Corp., shows a nuclear reactor in Baraka in the United Arab Emirates. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
sshluck@yna.co.kr
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