On Sept. 18 (local time), a U.S. court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by U.S. nuclear power company Westinghouse to prevent Korea’s state-run nuclear power generator Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) from exporting its independently developed nuclear reactors.
KHNP is a rival of Westinghouse. The Korean power company has been promoting the export of a nuclear power plant to the Czech Republic.
The U.S. court ruled with respect to the lawsuit that Westinghouse did not have the authority to sue KHNP to enforce export control regulations.
In October 2022, Westinghouse filed a lawsuit against KHNP, claiming that KHNP used Westinghouse’s technology that is subject to export controls under the U.S. Atomic Energy Act in the APR1400, a Korean-type nuclear reactor that KHNP wants to export to Poland and the Czech Republic. In the lawsuit, Westinghouse asked the court to block KHNP from exporting the reactor without a U.S. government permit. KHNP argued that Westinghouse, a private company, had no authority to claim its rights in court, and the court ruled in favor of KHNP.
However, the U.S. court did not rule on the main issue, which is an intellectual property dispute over Korean nuclear power plants, so the outcome of this case is far from completely resolving the issue facing KEPCO in the United States. The court’s decision to dismiss Westinghouse’s lawsuit on the grounds that it has no legal standing to sue based on the fact that nuclear export control lies solely with the purview of the U.S. government makes it even more important to resolve the issue through negotiations between the Korean and U.S. governments, analysts say. Therefore, it has become more likely that the Korean government will hold in-depth discussions with its U.S. counterpart on how to resolve the export report issue about the APR1400.
“The two governments want to amicably resolve the issue through negotiations,” a senior Korean government official said. “The U.S. court’s decision can pave the way for a resolution,” a senior Korean government official said. Resolving the dispute between KHNP and Westinghouse is crucial for the Yoon Suk-yeol administration to attain its goal of exporting 10 nuclear power plants by 2030.
KHNP welcomed the verdict of the U.S. Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 19, but said it will carefully analyze the intent of the decision and take careful follow-up actions. The company has been actively seeking to land additional nuclear power plant orders from Poland and the Czech Republic since winning the 3-trillion-won El Dabaa nuclear power plant construction project in August last year.
Considering the export of nuclear power plants to countries other than the Czech Republic, KHNP is poised to clearly prove the originality of the APR1400 this time. Although the company received help from Westinghouse in the early stages of development, it insists that the APR1400 that it wants to export is not subject to U.S. export controls because it independently developed the nuclear reactor.
KHNP is set to fundamentally resolve the intellectual property dispute through arbitration proceedings in Korea, irrespective of the legal case in the US court.