Korea Electrical Energy Corp. (KEPCO) and Westinghouse Electrical Co. LLC have signed an settlement to resolve their mental property dispute over nuclear reactor designs and pursue collaboration.
Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania-based Westinghouse mentioned Thursday it might work with KEPCO and KEPCO’s Korea Hydro and Nuclear Energy Co. Ltd. (KHNP) for the dismissal of all present authorized actions.
United States litigation and worldwide arbitration are pending regarding Westinghouse’s declare to sub-licensing and export rights towards South Korea’s state-owned KEPCO.
“This settlement permits each events to maneuver ahead with certainty within the pursuit and deployment of recent nuclear reactors”, Westinghouse mentioned in a web based assertion. “The settlement additionally units the stage for future cooperation between the events to advance new nuclear initiatives globally”.
Westinghouse president and chief govt Patrick Fragman mentioned, “Because the world calls for extra agency baseload energy, we sit up for alternatives for cooperation to deploy nuclear energy at even larger scale”.
Particulars of the settlement deal are confidential, Westinghouse mentioned.
In a current episode of the authorized row, which dates again to 2022, Westinghouse final 12 months protested in Czechia after the Central European nation’s state-owned CEZ Group chosen KHNP over Westinghouse for 2 nuclear reactors. Westinghouse argued KHNP’s designs use the previous’s expertise and that the Korean firm didn’t have clearance beneath U.S. tech export controls.
Saying the enchantment earlier than the Czech Anti-Monopoly Workplace on August 26, 2024, Westinghouse mentioned, “The tender required distributors to certify they possess the best to switch and sublicense the nuclear expertise supplied of their bids to CEZ and native suppliers”.
“KHNP’s APR1000 and APR1400 plant designs make the most of Westinghouse-licensed Technology II System 80 expertise. KHNP neither owns the underlying expertise nor has the best to sublicense it to a 3rd celebration with out Westinghouse consent.
“Additional, solely Westinghouse has the authorized proper to acquire the required approval from the U.S. authorities to export its expertise”.
“Westinghouse will proceed to vigorously defend its mental property rights and compliance with U.S. export management legal guidelines through the continuing worldwide arbitration and U.S. litigation, respectively. A call within the arbitration will not be anticipated earlier than the second half of 2025”.
On the time, KHNP instructed Reuters in response it “will reply sufficiently to the dispute with Westinghouse to keep away from unfavourable impacts on the Czech nuclear undertaking”.
The settlement introduced Thursday comes after Washington and Seoul finalized an settlement on civil nuclear cooperation and ideas regarding nuclear exports.
The memorandum of understanding “displays the 2 nations’ mutual dedication to maximizing the peaceable makes use of of nuclear power beneath the very best worldwide requirements of nuclear security, safety, safeguards, and nonproliferation”, mentioned a joint assertion January 8, 2025.
It “will bolster every of the allies’ export controls on civil nuclear expertise”, the assertion mentioned.
“It would additionally present a pathway to assist each nations sustain with the emergence of recent applied sciences on this sector”, the assertion added.
Welcoming the Westinghouse-KEPCO settlement, U.S. Power Secretary Jennifer Granholm mentioned in an announcement Thursday that the event “marks an distinctive accomplishment which may pave the way in which for lots of of billions of {dollars} in cooperative initiatives shifting ahead whereas creating and sustaining lots of of 1000’s of jobs within the civil nuclear sector”.
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