DOJ calls for Mittal to sell Sparrows Point mill.The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ (Department Of Justice) The legal arm of the U.S. government that represents the public interest of the United States. It is headed by the Attorney General. ) has called for Mittal Steel Co., based in The Netherlands, with U.S. headquarters in Chicago, to divest its Sparrows Point Sparrows Point is an unincorporated area in Baltimore County, Maryland. It was named for Thomas Sparrow, landowner, and is adjacent to Dundalk, Maryland. It is the site of a very large industrial complex, now in decline, known in the past for steelmaking and shipbuilding. steel mill, near Baltimore. The DOJ is requiring the divestiture of the mill to reduce any competitive advantage that Mittal may enjoy after acquiring Arcelor S.A. The DOJ ruled that the acquisition would significantly reduce competition in the market for tin mill products in the Eastern United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . To remedy the department's competitive concerns, the proposed consent decree A settlement of a lawsuit or criminal case in which a person or company agrees to take specific actions without admitting fault or guilt for the situation that led to the lawsuit. A consent decree is a settlement that is contained in a court order. required Mittal to divest a steel mill that supplied tin mill products to the Eastern United States. Mittal's first obligation was to attempt to divest Dofasco Inc., a Canadian company owned by Arcelor. However, the proposed consent decree anticipated the possibility that Mittal might be unable to sell Dofasco because Arcelor had, in an attempt to defeat Mittal's hostile takeover Hostile Takeover A takeover attempt that is strongly resisted by the target firm. Notes: Hostile takeovers are usually bad news, as the employee moral of the target firm can quickly turn to animosity against the acquiring firm. bid, placed legal title to Dofasco into a Dutch foundation. Therefore, in the event the sale of Dofasco could not be carried out as required, the proposed consent decree gave the department the right to select for divestiture either Mittal Steel's Sparrows Point mill or its Weirton, W. Va., mill. The department has determined after a thorough review that, among these two alternate facilities, the divestiture of Sparrows Point will most reliably remedy the anticompetitive an·ti·com·pet·i·tive adj. That discourages competition among businesses: anticompetitive foreign trade restrictions. effects of the acquisition. Various sources have mentioned several potential buyers, including steel mills in both Europe and Asia. ThyssenKrupp, a German company that has been growing its steel business, says it has no interest in acquiring the steel mill. ThyssenKrupp had earlier attempted to purchase Dofasco. |
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