Nippon Steel, Sumitomo Metals Submit 2nd Merger Investigation Files to JFTC

Nippon Steel Corporation and Sumitomo Metal Industries submitted documents required for the second investigation on their merger to Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) on November 9. JFTC starts secondly investigation on NSC and Sumitomo Metals merger on the same day. JFTC will notice the investigation result within 90 days until February 7, 2012.

JFTC is expected to take their global market share and relationship with their customers in consideration though JFTC has highly regarded domestic market share of merging enterprises so far. After the approval by JFTC, NSC and Sumitomo Metals will conclude a merger contract in April 2012, put the subject on their shareholders’ meetings in late June, and implement the merger on October 1.

NSC and Sumitomo Metals announced on February 3, 2011 they started a merger talk and submitted a merger application to JFTC on May 31. JFTC implemented 30-day first investigation and offered two companies to apply additional documents for the second investigation on June 30. JFTC will materialize a result of the second investigation within 90 days from the day of file submission.

JFTC comprehensively evaluates the merger in accordance with their customers’ availability to procure steel products from offshore steel makers, the merger’s effects on both Japanese and overseas new entrants, or power balance between steel makers and steel users. JFTC has previously investigated mergers’ effects on domestic market only. However, business circumstances are globally changing. Thus, in this case, domestically high share products may not be regarded unfair by users’ adoption of overseas steel products.