Regulators ask Mittal to divest US tin mill in Arcelor takeover

The US Justice Department has ordered that Mittal Steel would be required to sell its Sparrows Point mill to address competition concerns arising out of Mittal’s recent acquisition of rival steel giant Arcelor. However, the proposed consent decree would allow Mittal to hold a mill in West Virginia that had volunteered to be sold to preserve competition for tin-plated steel. The Justice Department further said that sale of the mill may help to ease concerns over competition coming out of the deal combining two steel makers to create Arcelor Mittal. Regulators had also expressed their concern over the fact that originally proposed acquisition would have ‘substantially lessened’ competition in the market for tin mill products in the eastern United States. The Justice Department last year sought to block the Arcelor deal until the monopoly issues were resolved. The Sparrows Point plant is more accessible than inland operations for imports of raw materials and exports of steel. The plant has the capacity to produce about 3.9 billion tons of steel a year, including 500,000 tons of tin plate used to make cans for food. In August last year, the Department’s Antitrust Division had filed a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., to prevent Mittal’s proposed acquisition of Arcelor. At the same time, the Department had also filed a proposed consent decree, if approved by the court, with a view to resolve the lawsuit and the Department’s competitive concerns. In the meanwhile, Dofasco announced that following the US Department of Justice’s decision requiring Arcelor-Mittal to divest its facility, Dofasco’s integration with Arcelor-Mittal can proceed ahead. The prospective integration of Dofasco and Arcelor-Mittal would make Dofasco to benefit from being part of a larger North American business and a global leader.