The Alstom-Siemens Eurotrain consortium has vowed to fight on, despite suffering another setback in its legal action against the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation (THSRC, 台灣高鐵公司).
The Taiwan High Court yesterday rejected a Eurotrain appeal seeking an injunction preventing its former partner from signing a contract with its Japanese rival, Shinkansen, to build the country's high-speed railway linking Taipei to Kaohsiung.
Following the High Court decision yesterday, the Eurotrain consortium revealed it is contemplating taking the case to the Singapore International Arbitration Center and seeking compensation from the THSRC for what it called a breach of the 1997 accord.
Phai Hua Way (
He also confirmed that Eurotrain is still continuing with "various efforts" to win back the deal, in addition to the legal actions.
The filing of the initial injunction request in the Taipei district court was prompted by the THSRC's announcement on Dec. 28 that it was awarding priority negotiating rights to the Taiwan Shinkansen Consortium (TSC,
Furious at losing the construction bid to the TSC, which is led by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Eurotrain requested a court order in mid-January to suspend any further negotiations and prevent the signing of a contract between the THSRC and the TSC.
Eurotrain alleged the dramatic switch was in breach of the 1997 Eurotrain-THSRC agreement, which it claimed had obliged THSRC to sign a contract with it as long as its construction prices were considered reasonable.
However, the High Court maintained the agreement did not give Eurotrain a guarantee to obtain the NT$95 billion contract, nor did it give the European consortium "exclusive" rights to negotiate with the THSRC.
As a result, the court concluded that Eurotrain cannot assume the 1997 accord prohibits the THSRC from signing contracts with any other parties.
The contract for the north-south high speed rail project, with an estimated budget of over NT$400 billion, was hotly contested by two local groups, the THSRC and the Chunghwa High Speed Rail Consortium (中華高鐵聯盟).
In 1998, the THSRC beat Chunghwa to the project based on a plan which offered to build the line with no government funding and proposing the use of the Eurotrain system.
However, the THSRC switched to a partnership with the TSC in December last year, with the two parties signing a memorandum of understanding for the purchase of the core system on June 13.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS