ABB Moves to Settle Asbestos Related Litigation ----------------------------------------------- Published January 10, 2003 ABB's Combustion Engineering division has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a 'pre-packaged' $1,200,000,000 (P750,000,000) deal with more than 100,000 claimants. The asbestos issue has threatened to place more pressure on ABB when it has already been forced to sell assets and focus on power and automation technology. Analysts said the bankruptcy move gave ABB some breathing space as it restructures its global operations involving 146,000 staff in 100 countries. Stock markets worldwide had become increasingly nervous about the scale of the asbestos claims it inherited when it bought Combustion Engineering, a manufacturer of industrial boilers, in 1990. ABB posted a record loss of $691,000,000 for 2001 and has yet to report results for last year. It is weighed down by debts of $9 billion, which it is hoping to cut by slashing $800,000,000 of costs through job cuts and sell-offs. ----------------------------------------------------------- LitigationDataSource.com