Alstom Transportation’s lawsuit challenging the decision of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to grant a Buy America waiver to Brightline West for its purchase of rolling stock from Siemens Mobility was dismissed on December 16, 2025.  The court concluded that Alstom lacked standing, in principal part because any injuries Alstom suffered were caused not by FRA, but by Brightline’s independent decision to contract with Siemens rather than Alstom.  If the court’s decision is not vacated on appeal, its reasoning suggests ways that project sponsors can insulate Buy America waivers from lawsuits challenging them.

The case arose from Brightline’s FRA-funded procurement seeking rolling stock for a high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California.  Alstom and Siemens both responded to the procurement and stated that they would need a waiver from Buy America requirements for the trains’ car shells.  On May 1, 2024, after FRA had issued a Notice of Proposed Nonavailability Waiver for either Siemens or Alstom but before FRA published its final waiver, Brightline announced that it had selected Siemens.  FRA published a final notice granting a waiver to Siemens on May 24, 2024, and Brightline and Siemens executed a purchase agreement on May 31.  Alstom brought suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., on July 17, challenging FRA’s decision under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Alstom asserted three theories of standing, but the court found each unpersuasive.  First, Alstom asserted that FRA’s decision caused it to lose revenue that it would have received from the contract.  But the court determined that Alstom had not shown that FRA’s decision caused Brightline to award the contract to Siemens.  The court noted that Alstom, unlike Siemens, had not previously produced trains suited to Brightline’s needs; Brightline selected Siemens before FRA announced its decision; and, if FRA had not granted a waiver, Brightline could have rescoped the contract, extended the project schedule, or sought additional proposals.  The court further concluded that Alstom had failed to show that a favorable decision would redress its injury, because it was unclear that, if the Buy America waiver were vacated, Brightline would then choose to contract with Alstom, especially given Siemens’s substantial work thus far.

Alstom’s remaining theories fared no better.  The court rejected Alstom’s claim that FRA’s waiver had altered Alstom’s and Siemens’s competitive status, given the timing of Siemens’s selection relative to the waiver and Alstom’s lack of current competition with Siemens for the project.  The court further rejected Alstom’s theory that it was injured by losing the right to participate in a legally valid procurement process, because such rights only apply to government procurements, and the FRA waiver was finalized after the award was made.  

The court’s reasoning suggests that proposers who lose out on a contract will face difficulty challenging Buy America waivers if the project sponsor can point to independent reasons why the suing proposer was not selected.  Moreover, proposers can make such lawsuits less likely to succeed by awarding contracts before Buy America waivers are finalized.  However, Alstom has appealed to the D.C. Circuit, so the decision may not stand.

If you have questions, please contact Allison Ishihara Fultz, Ayelet Hirschkorn, John Putnam, Subash Iyer, Chuck Spitulnik, Christian Alexander, Casey Morris, or Grant Glovin.