From Kyodo News

TOKYO -- Japan's big auto parts suppliers have declined to renew contracts with Ford Motor Co. due to concerns about their intellectual property rights, a Japanese business daily reported Monday.

The suppliers, such as Denso Corp. and Aisin Seiki Co., raised their concerns after Ford decided to include new provisions in its contracts allowing it to share suppliers' technologies with other Ford group firms, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said in its evening edition.

Besides the two Japanese firms, well over 100 suppliers, including Robert Bosch GmbH and Siemens AG, both of Germany, have withheld their contract renewals, the paper said in a dispatch from New York.

With negotiations unlikely to be concluded by the year's end, Ford's ability to procure high-tech parts, particularly for its new vehicles, could be impeded, the paper said.

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