US Steel, Nippon Sue Biden Administration

US Steel and Nippon have flled a lawsuit against the US government over President Joe Biden’s blocking of their merge worth $14.3 billion, as they claim that Biden’s executive order to bar the companies from merging was signed for “purely political reasons.”

“Today’s legal actions demonstrate Nippon Steel’s and US Steel’s continued commitment to completing the transaction — despite political interference,” the companies said in a statement.

The suit is no surprise, as the day Biden issued an order blocking the deal, the companies called the action “a clear violation of due process” and said they had “no choice but to take all appropriate action to protect our legal rights.”

Biden had spoken for months about his opposition to the deal. The companies’ statement said that Biden had “ignored the rule of law to gain favor with … (the United Steelworkers union) and support his political agenda.”

In addition to the suit seeking to throw out Biden’s order, the companies filed a separate suit against Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of rival steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs and Dave McCall, president of the United Steelworkers union, for their actions to try to block the deal, which the suit charges are “anticompetitive and racketeering activities illegally designed to prevent any party other than Cliffs from acquiring US Steel as part of an illegal campaign to monopolize critical domestic steel markets.”

In addition to seeking to block Cliffs and the USW from acting together, that separate lawsuit seeks “substantial monetary damages for their conduct.”

“A committee of national security and trade experts determined this acquisition would create risk for American national security,” said spokeswoman Robyn Patterson. “President Biden will never hesitate to protect the security of this nation, its infrastructure, and the resilience of its supply chains.”

USW President McCall issued a statement again praising the action by Biden and denouncing the suit.

“We are reviewing the complaint and will vigorously defend against these baseless allegations,” he said.

Cleveland-Cliffs did not have an immediate response to the lawsuits.

The Cleveland-Cliffs offer at that time was worth about $7.3 billion in cash and stock, or about half what Nippon would eventually offer when it reached the agreement to buy US Steel in December 2024. But as a unionized steelmaker, Cleveland-Cliffs had the support of the USW in its bid.

CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma