Russian steelmaker NLMK has announced that its US-based subsidiaries NLMK Indiana and NLMK Pennsylvania (NLMK USA) have signed a settlement agreement with the US government resolving NLMK’s lawsuit challenging the US Department of Commerce’s (DOC) denial of NLMK’s requests for exclusion from Section 232 steel tariffs.
NLMK filed the suit at the US Court of International Trade on February 27, 2020. It covered 86 requests for exclusion of slab submitted by NLMK USA in 2018. The DOC denied NLMK’s exclusion requests based on statements and representations from other US steel companies that they were willing and able to supply the products NLMK USA required. NLMK USA insisted that American mills did not manufacture the products in the quality and quantity required.
In the settlement, the government agreed to refund to NLMK USA a significant portion of the tariffs it had paid, with accrued interest.