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The US unit of China Railway Rolling Stock Corp, maker of transit rail cars, is paying Mercury Public Affairs $25K a month to land a contract for the New York subway system.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Jan. 2018 announced plans to spend $4B to order more than a thousand subway cars to upgrade the aging system.
Japan’s Kawasaki got a contract for the first batch of cars set for delivery in 2020. No American company makes transit rail cars.
CRRC has aggressively bid on contracts throughout the US, winning four (Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles) of the five contracts by offering rock-bottom prices.
It is a top contender to win a more than $1B contract for 800 cars for the Washington Metro.
The success of the Chinese state-owned company has drawn the attention of federal lawmakers, intelligence and defense officials who worry that CRRC-made cars could carry equipment for electronic spying or causing a crash.
DC area Senators Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen sent a letter to DC Metro earlier this month, recommending that it gets clearance from the Pentagon and Depts. of Homeland Security and Transportation before awarding CRRC a contract.
The Washington Post reported Jan. 8 that the Metro added a cybersecurity safeguard provision in the contract that it plans to award later this year.
Mercury’s pact is with CRRC MA Corp, which is based in Quincy, MA, and calls for strategic consulting and management services such as arranging/attending meetings and providing logistical support during visits to New York.
Omnicom owns Mercury.
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company banned by Defense Secretary Hegseth, has hired Ballard Partners for DC representation.
The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development enrolls Venable for government relations services.
Coinbase has hired Checkmate Government Relations, which has close ties to the Trump administration, to handle matters related to digital assets as the Senate works on the Clarity Act.
Peter Thiel-backed Palantir Technologies has added Democratic firm Ferox Strategies to its DC lobbying line-up to handle data analytics and technology issues.
Former congressmen Joe Crowley (D-NY) and Jeff Denham (R-CA) have signed on to handle the “new” TikTok on issues related to internet technology and learning-enabled platforms.
