• Ex Ilva, Arcelor Mittal announces the suspension of activities at the Taranto plant
  • Ex Ilva, dramatic situation: Arcelor Mittal communicates the plant closure plan
  • ArcelorMittal meeting company-unions tomorrow. Presidium at the Mise of related companies
  • Ilva: the M5S senators open to the penal shield in time, "but ArcelorMittal comes back to negotiate"
  • ArcelorMittal filed the contract withdrawal contract in court
  • Arcelor Mittal, today in court to request the withdrawal from the contract
  • ArcelorMittal, Di Maio: "The penal shield is a mass distractor"

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15 November 2019

Meeting at the Mise between government, ArcelorMittal and trade unions. On the discussion table, the procedure for returning the staff from the steel multinational to the companies from which they hired him a year ago. "I do not recognize the right of withdrawal of the company", according to reports from sources present at the meeting, the Minister of Economic Development, Stefano Patuanelli.

But the company continues to claim that the terms for withdrawal are there. "What led us to believe that the contract could be terminated is that the terms of the contract were not respected, from a legal point of view" said Lucia Morselli, CEO of Arcelor Mittal Italia. In essence, the CEO maintains, in Taranto the company would have found conditions different from those envisaged. "The hot area is improving in terms of environmental quality," added Morselli, "but it is not yet in the conditions in which it should arrive in 2023. From an environmental point of view, it is still not optimal. Up to a few weeks does this was not a crime, this is not a trivial matter ".

Conte: "Presented appeal. No to extinguish blast furnaces"
"An appeal has been filed pursuant to Article 700 of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure in order to stop the depletion of a strategic asset of our industrial system such as the former Ilva plant in Taranto. The Government will not let it be deliberately pursued to extinguish blast furnaces, the that would mean the end of any prospect of relaunching this productive investment and safeguarding employment levels and the definitive compromise of the environmental recovery plan ". The president of the Council Giuseppe Conte stated in a note.

"Arcelor Mittal is taking on a huge responsibility, as this decision foreshadows a clear breach of contractual commitments and serious damage to the national economy. Of this he will answer in court both for what concerns the compensation for damages, and for what regards the urgent procedure - continues the premier -. The initiative of the Milan Public Prosecutor is also welcome. He has decided to intervene in court and to light a beacon also on the possible criminal aspects of the affair ".

The Milan Public Prosecutor opens a file: "The public interest must be protected"
The Milan Public Prosecutor's Office breaks into the ArcelorMittal case by opening a penal scenario, currently barely sketched because without crimes or suspects, and entering into civil proceedings as the bearer of "public interest". A sort of double pincer on the Franco-Indian group against which commercial-corporate crimes could be hypothesized for the escape from the Apulian steelworks. The prosecutor Francesco Greco has delegated the Economic Unit of the Guardia di Finanza to carry out "preliminary checks" to verify "the possible existence of crimes".

Unpublished, even if with some precedents, the dress worn by the Public Prosecutor in the civil trial born from the summons with which the multinational company requests the withdrawal from the rental contract. Greco believes that the intervention he defined as a "right - duty" is necessary for "the protection of a public interest relating to the defense of employment levels, the economic - productive needs of the country, and the obligations of the recovery process". "There are precedents in 'Clean Hands - the prosecutor explains to the Agi - like when a beacon was lit on Mediobanca".

To deal with both fronts, coordinated by an expert magistrate like Maurizio Romanelli, will be the public prosecutors Stefano Civardi and Mauro Clerici, the first to start investigations into the foreign activities of the Riva family, which led to the seizure of 1.3 million in one safe from Jersey, then released for the remediation of the Taranto plant. The last act of a long series of proceedings was, on 6 July this year, the acquittal from the bankruptcy crime for Fabio Riva, head of the iron and steel group together with his father Emilio and his brother Nicola.

At the penal level, the prosecution intends to ascertain whether, during the execution of the rental contract, from which Mittal wants to withdraw, significant criminal conduct has been carried out that has caused the eventual depletion of the business branch.

Also in the Milan offices, today the urgent appeal of the extraordinary Commissioners of the former Ilva was filed, the counter-appeal to stop the counterpart's farewell. Already on Monday, the judge Claudio Marangoni could set the date of the first hearing. For the moment, instead, the Presidency of the Council remains silent which, theoretically, could support the Public Prosecutor's Office.

Arcelor Mittal announces the suspension of activities at the Taranto plant
With a letter addressed to the government and institutions of Taranto, Arcelor Mittal announced the suspension of the activities of the Taranto plant and of the power plants "with methods designed to preserve the integrity of the plants pending the relegation of the business branches". Letter where it summarizes and details the dates of the stop, which will involve the three blast furnaces from 13 December and until mid-January, and also explains the procedures it will perform for the safety of the plants. And Arcelor makes it clear that "the technical gas production area, whose operation is necessary to ensure the safety of the other plants thanks to the production of inert gas (nitrogen), remains partially excluded from the shutdown activity; the energy distribution area which ensures the management of gas networks and electricity networks, the distribution and treatment of cooling water to the plants and the treatment of wastewater ". Thus, the situation for the steelworks in Taranto is falling, with a path that is rapidly moving towards an almost certainly non-peaceful solution between the parties.

Commissioners prohibited
ArcelorMittal's ban on inspecting commissioners within the company helped fuel the level of tension that was already high on the matter this morning. A decision negatively commented also by Stefano Patuanelli, Minister of Economic Development: "Today there will be a meeting with the company asked for the unions", but still "today the company has banned inspectors from inspecting. I believe it is a very serious fact that will have to have an adequate response "said the minister on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Terna Italia Montenegro power line.

The anger of the undersecretary
Alessia Morani, Undersecretary for Economic Development and Basic Reformist, intervenes firmly on the matter: "We will in no way allow Arcelor Mittal to plunder the largest Italian and European steel company. Arcelor Mittal is implementing actions altogether illegitimate even preventing inspectors from inspecting. We know that we will prevent the switching off of the blast furnaces because the former Ilva is a national heritage and no one has to afford to use it to speculate ".

Landini presses on the government
"On Ilva the Government must overcome some delay. And above all, if Arcelor Mittal is asked to respect the agreements signed, the Government must also do so." This was said by CGIL secretary general Maurizio Landini. "With Uil and Cisl we are talking about common initiatives to be undertaken". "At the Arcelor Mittal, we say that he rented the Ilva after winning a race and cannot decide now to close it after signing agreements that also included investments. Among other things, I think it cannot even be allowed". "When Arcelor rented Ilva, the company was fine and today we cannot accept that it will go away like this. We discuss the timing but not the disengagement from Taranto, as well as from Genoa and Alessandria; only thousands of jobs are being discussed, but also an idea of ​​an industrial system. With steel, everything is done ".