Ansaldo can continue using Siemens technology: Tribunal

Ansaldo Energia's AE94.3A[/caption]

On 29 July 2016 an International Chamber of Commerce Arbitral Tribunal issued a final award saying that Ansaldo Energia (AEN) has unlimited rights to use Siemens technology for heavy duty gas turbines.

The dispute was about the Siemens heavy gas turbines technology which Siemens had licensed to AEN under a license agreement running until October 2004. Thereafter the parties had agreed that AEN could continue to use and improve such Siemens technology “without any future limitation”, says Ansaldo Energia.

In 2014, Shanghai Electric Group bought a 40% stake in Ansaldo Energia for $0.55 billion. Two years before that, Siemens had sought to buy all of Ansaldo for $1.6 billion but the deal didn't go through. A 2013 deal with Doosan was blocked by Italian government. The Shanghai Electric group move gives the Chinese firm access to a key Siemens legacy gas turbine technology.

When in May 2014 AEN announced its cooperation agreements with Shanghai Electric Group (China) and Doosan Heavy Industries (S-Korea) to enter Asian markets and distribute gas turbines worldwide, Siemens said that it could immediately terminate all of AEN’s rights to use the Siemens technology and started arbitration proceedings against AEN.

Siemens said that if the Arbitral Tribunal would not stop AEN’s cooperation activities, these activities would destroy substantial parts of Siemens’ gas turbine business. Siemens also stated that AEN’s technical cooperation with its Asian partner would seriously and irreparably harm Siemens’ position in the market.

A press release from Ansaldo Energia says: "The ICC Arbitral Tribunal composed of German and Swiss legal experts, however, dismissed claims of Siemens and stated that AEN is free to use the formerly licensed Siemens technology worldwide without any limitations and to freely sub-license such technology to third parties including the right to sub-license the relevant patents. The Arbitral Tribunal condemned Siemens to pay AEN US$ 490,000 in arbitration costs plus EUR 2,584,860.51 in party costs. In addition, the Arbitral Tribunal also made clear that AEN would be free to start new arbitral proceedings against Siemens if it would turn out that Siemens wrongly informed third parties about AEN’s rights thereby causing damage to AEN."

Ansaldo also owns the Alstom gas turbine technology with sequential combustion features.