A spokesman said ABB had asked the court to review those parts of its ruling that dealt with the inclusion of its US divisions Lummus and Basic in the overall asbestos settlement plan for ABB's Combustion Engineering unit.

The US court had criticised ABB's plans to include the two divisions in its plan for Combustion Engineering and ring-fence asbestos claims for all three subsidiaries.

Combustion Engineering, which remains in Chapter 11 creditor protection, made industrial boilers lined with asbestos, a lethal substance that can cause cancer and other diseases.

Lummus and Basic have received far fewer asbestos claims than Combustion Engineering but all three units made products containing asbestos and shared production sites.

The court also wanted a closer look into whether ABB's plans treated all claimants equally, saying that some who went along with the plan at an early stage seemed to have received higher compensation than those who settled at a later stage.

"We have elected for now not to request reconsideration of the other portions of the decision. We remain confident that we can address the concerns of the court adequately to successfully finalise Combustion Engineering's bankruptcy plan," ABB said.

The surprise rejection two weeks ago was a major setback for ABB. The maker of electric motors and robots had hoped the deal would end years of legal wrangling and put a cap on asbestos claims filed by thousands of former US workers.

Shares in ABB had plummeted about 12 percent on the news, wiping $1.5 billion off the engineer's market capitalisation.

The stock has recovered somewhat from the initial shock after ABB moved to calm fears by saying it hoped to resolve the issue within months and without much extra costs. The stock was up 0.5 percent at 6.39 Swiss francs at 1615 GMT, in line with the broader Swiss market.

Steven Kazan, a lawyer representing a number of claimants, had told a Swiss newspaper last week that ABB may face between $800 million and $2 billion in extra costs, on top of the $1.2 billion it already put into a claims fund.