Tata Steel has filed a lawsuit against Liberty Steel over its speciality steel business deal made in 2017, Fastmarkets heard on Thursday April 22.
A Tata Steel spokesperson confirmed the company has filed a commercial court claim against Liberty Steel concerning the speciality steel division deal, however, the spokesperson declined to go into more details because this is an active case.
Liberty Steel's spokesperson declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Fastmarkets.
Liberty completed the purchase of the speciality steels division from Tata Steel UK for ?100 million ($139,184 million) in May 2017.
The deal included a number of units in the county of South Yorkshire, such as an electric arc furnace (EAF) steelworks and bar mill in Rotherham, a steel purifying facility in Stocksbridge and a narrow steel strip mill in Brinsworth.
Tata Steel's claim is reported to relate to missed payments for the facilities in Rotherham, several market sources told Fastmarkets.
The Rotherham works has an EAF with a capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per year and is capable of producing 600,000 tpy of merchant bars. The Stocksbridge factory has a capacity to manufacture 500,000 tpy of merchant bars, Fastmarkets' database shows.
Liberty Steel has been experiencing financial turmoil since its parent company,
GFG Alliance, was named in a banking probe in March this year.
Maria Tanatar in London contributed to this report.