American Superconductor Management Discusses Q1 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

In the United States, leaders such as Senator John Kerry; former Secretary of Commerce and now Ambassador to China, Gary Locke; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; and Vice President, Biden, have been personally pressing our case with their counterparts in the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, we are continuing to press our case to the Chinese courts. The legal proceedings include 3 civil suits and a commercial arbitration case, which in total, amount to about $1.2 billion. Two of our civil cases deal with Sinovel's copyright infringement. The first is in Hainan, a southern province in China, and the second is in Beijing. Sinovel had made motions to dismiss both of these cases saying that they should be added to arbitration. The Hainan courts sided with Sinovel, dismissing our case there. The Beijing courts recently sided with AMSC, rejecting Sinovel's motion.

AMSC and Sinovel have both now filed appeals on these rulings with China's Supreme Court. We are now awaiting a hearing date.

We also are awaiting a court date on our third civil case, which deals with Sinovel's infringement of trade secrets. In this case, our claims amount to more than $450 million. We believe this is the largest intellectual property case ever undertaken in China.

We continue to see progress in our fourth legal proceeding, which is with the Beijing Arbitration Commission. Here, we are seeking payment for approximately $70 million in past product shipments and enforcement of our existing contracts with Sinovel, which amount to more than $700 million.

As we discussed on our last call, we've already completed 2 sessions with the Beijing Arbitration Commission. A third session will be held next week in Beijing. While it is possible that additional sessions may be needed to complete the evidence submission and rebuttals, we are hopeful that the tribunal of arbitrators will begin their deliberations in the not-too-distant future.

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