Re. Chapter 11 filed

ABB Ltd
17 February 2003

Combustion Engineering files for pre-packaged Chapter 11

Zurich, Switzerland, February 17, 2003 - ABB Ltd. said today that its U.S.
subsidiary Combustion Engineering, Inc. (CE) has filed for Chapter 11 in the
Delaware bankruptcy court, based upon CE's previously announced pre-packaged
plan of reorganization.

The pre-packaged plan was earlier negotiated with certain asbestos claimants'
lawyers and approved by David Austern, the proposed representative for future
claimants.

The voting period for the plan commenced in January and is currently scheduled
to end on February 19, 2003. As of Saturday, February 15, approximately 103,000
favorable votes had been received, together with less than 1,000 votes cast
against the plan.

CE decided to file the Chapter 11 case prior to February 19 in order to
foreclose any possible last-minute effort by objecting claimants to file an
involuntary bankruptcy and thereby interrupt the voting process.

CE intends to seek immediate confirmation from the bankruptcy court that voting
will continue to completion on February 19, as originally scheduled.

CE is encouraged by the magnitude and favorable outcome of the vote to date. CE
will seek prompt confirmation of the proposed pre-packaged plan.

The terms of the proposed pre-packaged plan remain unchanged.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable
utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering
environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in more than 100
countries and employs about 146,000 people.

The company will host a conference call for analysts, investors and the media at
1700 Central European Time. Teleconference callers should dial [phone]
in Europe and [phone] in the U.S. and Canada. The audio playback of the
conference call will be available for 96 hours after the call commencing 2 hours
after the conference call on [phone] (Europe) and [phone] in the
U.S. and Canada. The PIN number is 812#.

This press release includes forward-looking information and statements that are
subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ.
These statements are based on current expectations, estimates and projections
about global economic conditions, the economic conditions of the regions and
industries that are major markets for ABB Ltd and ABB Ltd's lines of business.
These expectations, estimates and projections are generally identifiable by
statements containing words such as 'expects', 'believes', 'estimates' or
similar expressions. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from those expectations include, among others, economic and market
conditions in the geographic areas and industries that are major markets for
ABB's businesses, market acceptance of new products and services, changes in
governmental regulations, interest rates, fluctuations in currency exchange
rates and such other factors as may be discussed from time to time in ABB's
filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Although ABB Ltd
believes that its expectations reflected in any such forward-looking statement
are based upon reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that those
expectations will be achieved.




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