Componenta to appeal to Court of Appeal

Componenta Corporation Stock Exchange Release 7.1.2004 at 10.00 am

Componenta to appeal to Court of Appeal against District Court
decision

On 31 December 2003 the Helsinki District Court announced its
decision according to which Componenta CPC Oy (now called
Componenta Karkkila Oy) was sentenced to compensate VR Ltd
(Finnish Railways) a total of EUR 870,000 in compensation for
train wheels supplied and indirect costs, plus accumulated
interest, as well as VR's legal costs. Componenta is appealing to
the Court of Appeal against the decision.

The decision of the district court relates to a contract to supply
train wheels signed in 1990 and wheels supplied in 1991 and 1992.
VR used the train wheels until 1997 when it made a claim for
damages to Componenta for the wheels and took the wheels out of
service. The main reason for the decision to take the wheels out
of service was the damage to one train wheel that occurred in
February 1997, which according to VR may have been due to a hidden
manufacturing defect in the train wheel.

The damaged wheel had been in use for more than 750,000 kilometres
and had not been serviced for the past 400,000 km (2.3 years).
Research by VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland) has shown
that the crack that resulted in the damage cannot have started
from a hidden manufacturing defect; there must have been some
other cause, possibly a crack left during turning carried out in
the previous service. A total of more than 900 wheels were
manufactured and the oldest of these have been in service for more
than 10 years. VTT which was working for VR did not observe in its
research that the properties of the damaged wheel differed from
those of the other wheels. Based on these facts, VTT stated that
there was very little chance of the other wheels supplied being
damaged.

Componenta supplied the train wheels in accordance with the
drawings supplied by VR and with VR's technical requirements and
VR approved all the train wheels in their thorough receiving
inspection approval. Componenta is not responsible because the
working life of the wheels did not meet VR's expectations. It is
the understanding of Componenta and VTT that the cause of the
damage in the train wheel was not a manufacturing defect but that
a crack possibly left during the previous service carried out by
VR was a decisive factor.

Componenta is recording the decision of the district court in the
notes to its 2003 financial statements and this will have no
impact on the result for the previous or the current year.

Helsinki, 7 January 2004

COMPONENTA CORPORATION

Heikki Lehtonen

FURTHER INFORMATION
Heikki Lehtonen      Kimmo Virtanen
President and CEO    CFO
tel. +358 9 225 021  tel. +358 9 225 021