ABB Wins Asbestos Related Settlement Hearing Delay
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Published April 04, 2003


ABB Ltd., Europe's largest electrical-engineering company, won a two-week delay 
to a US court hearing on putting a unit into bankruptcy protection to boost its 
chances of settling asbestos claims.  The hearing will take place April 24 instead 
of April 7, spokesman Wolfram Eberhardt said, allowing US Judge Judy Fitzgerald to 
consider reorganizing an advisory committee of creditors suing ABB's Combustion 
Engineering unit.  

ABB, which has posted losses of $1.5 billion in two years while 
boosting asbestos provisions, wants the committee changed because a majority of members 
oppose a $1.2 billion settlement of 136,000 lawsuits.  ABB wants to add members who 
support the plan. 

We wanted to do everything possible to ensure a successful decision for ABB, Mr. 
Eberhardt said. The current make-up of this committee doesn't adequately represent 
the support for the settlement from an overwhelming majority of plaintiffs.

The Swiss company has said that more than 90 percent of plaintiffs who voted on the 
settlement in February supported its plan.  Analysts said that it may take beyond 
April 24 for the judge to issue a decision on the settlement.

The delay could be taken as bad news by the market, said Mark Diethelm, a Zuercher 
Kantonalbank analyst in Zurich who may cut his market perform rating if an asbestos 
settlement is postponed again.  It remains uncertain if there will be a decision on 
April 24, he told investors in a note.

Chief Executive Juergen Dormann must resolve asbestos claims, which stem from boilers 
made by Combustion Engineering into the 1970s that were lined with the cancer-causing 
insulation material, to help attract buyers for businesses it is selling, analysts have 
said.

The delay won't affect planned divestments of the company's oil, gas and petrochemicals 
or building-maintenance units, Mr. Eberhardt said.  ABB wants to sell the divisions, 
along with investments from an equity-ventures portfolio, to raise more than $2 billion 
this year to repay debt.

Negotiations over oil, gas and petrochemicals are at the due-diligence stage, 
he added.  The court delay of a few days won't have any great impact.


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