Nippon Steel, U.S. Steel sue over Biden decision to block sale

Jan. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel said on Monday that it is suing over President Joe Biden's decision to block its sales agreement and a domestic competitor and union over their actions to scuttle the deal.

In their lawsuit filed in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Japanese-based company and U.S. Steel said Biden violated Constitutional guarantees of due process and statutory procedural requirements along with "unlawful political influences."

The second lawsuit accuses Cleveland-Cliffs, a rival steel company that pursued their own purchase of U.S. Steel, and U.S. Steel's union for working together to illegally nix the sale. That federal lawsuit was filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania.

"Today's legal actions demonstrate Nippon Steel's and U.S. Steel's continued commitment to completing the transaction -- despite political interference with the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] process and the racketeering and monopolistic conspiracies of Cleveland-Cliffs and USW President David McCall -- for the benefit of all stakeholders, including U.S. Steel's shareholders, who will receive the agreed-upon $55 per share upon the transaction closing," the steel companies said in a statement.

On Friday, Biden announced he was blocking Nippon Steel's $14.1 billion agreement to buy U.S. Steel, citing national security concerns and threats to the domestic steel market.

The CFIUS, which makes recommendations to the president on large deals involving foreign entities, declined to give an approval or disapproval of the Nippon-U.S. Steel deal, giving Biden the green light to block the transaction.

The steel companies said the rejection was muddled in politics with former President Donald Trump and legislators weighing on having arguably the country's most iconic steel company be owned by Japan, despite the country's being an ally of the United States.

The companies said that Cleveland Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves and the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy Allied Industries and Service Workers International Union -- which represents U.S. Steel workers -- of collusion.

"Cleveland-Cliffs,in collusion with the leadership of the USW, has sought to prevent the transition from closing and any party other than Cliffs from acquiring U.S.Steel," Nippon and U.S. Steel.