Indian Steel major Tata Steel has filed a commercial court case against British Indian steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta who led GFG Alliance, which owns Liberty Steel in the United Kingdom over alleged missed payments from an acquisition dating back to 2017.
Back in May 2017, Liberty Steel stepped in to acquire TATA’s speciality steel business employing more than 1,700 people in Yorkshire, Lancashire and the West Maldives for an estimated sum of 100 Million pounds.
Now it has observed that the payments have been missed in the transaction resulting in TATA launching proceedings against Liberty speciality steels and all the parts of the GFG Alliance. On Thursday (April 22, 2021) TATA Steel’s spokesperson said, “As this is an active case now, we are not commenting on that.”
While addressing the current financial crisis that Liberty Steel is facing, they issued an update on its ongoing refinancing efforts.
A GFG Alliance spokesperson said, “While most of our businesses are performing well, some of our businesses in the UK suffered due to this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of the Greensill capital has meant there is less working capital support in our UK’s business while we seek new financing strategy to replace Greensill. As this takes place, we are undertaking significant self-help measures with the support of our customer and suppliers to ensure we manage cash and continue to operate.”
The UK government on similar lines has stated that it will continue to work with businesses and labour unions to find ways to save thousands of jobs.
