Washington The firms announced on Saturday that the Biden administration will postpone implementing an executive order this month requiring Nippon Steel to withdraw its $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel.
On January 3, President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s planned acquisition of U.S. Steel on national security grounds. This week, his Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an interagency review body, had thoroughly examined the proposed deal.
The postponement will allow the courts to consider a challenge to Biden’s decision that was filed by the parties earlier this month. Previously, the parties had 30 days to cancel the deal.
under a joint statement, the corporations expressed their satisfaction that CFIUS had extended the requirement under President Biden’s Executive Order that the parties permanently abandon the acquisition until June 18, 2025.
Assuring the best future for the American steel industry and all of our stakeholders, we look forward to closing the deal, they said.
In a complaint filed Monday, U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel claimed that Biden’s long-standing opposition to the agreement had tainted the CFIUS investigation, depriving them of their right to a fair examination. To get another chance at completing the merger, they requested that a federal appeals court reverse Biden’s decision to grant them a new review.
The CFIUS group, which is chaired by the U.S. Treasury secretary, examines foreign purchases of American businesses and other investment transactions for potential national security issues. The CFIUS typically makes decisions on cases directly or makes recommendations to the president, but in the instance of U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel, the panel was unable to agree on whether Biden should accept or reject it, so he made the final decision.
As the candidates fought for union votes in the November election, Biden and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump, had both expressed opposition to the Japanese business purchasing the American steelmaker.
Deals involving Japan and other closely allied Group of Seven nations have rarely been rejected by CFIUS.