Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel's European steel JV was vetoed by Brussels in June 2019

In July 2018 Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel signed the final agreement for a 50/50 joint venture, 'Thyssenkrupp Tata Steel', combining their flat-carbon and electrical steel operations in Germany, the Netherlands and Britain. It would have created Europe's second-largest steelmaker after ArcelorMittal, bringing together the EEA's second- and third-largest carbon steel producers.

Brussels opened a Phase II probe in October 2018. The concerns were specific: automotive hot-dip galvanised steel, packaging steel and tinplate — where the JV would have held roughly half the European market — and grain-oriented electrical steel. The parties offered to divest automotive and packaging steel plants in Spain, Belgium and the UK, but the Commission judged the remedies inadequate, and on 11 June 2019 it formally prohibited the JV — one of the few outright prohibitions in EU merger history.

Thyssenkrupp called the decision 'too far-reaching and wrong' and sued. By then the damage was done: Tata Steel was already exploring 'all options' for its European business, and Thyssenkrupp's strategy reset included plans to list or sell its elevators division. The courts did not rescue the deal: the General Court dismissed the challenge in June 2022, and the CJEU upheld the prohibition in October 2024.

No breakup fee, but six years of litigation; a strategy reset that pushed Thyssenkrupp toward selling its elevators arm; Tata put its European unit back on the block

The JV combined the two largest European producers in narrow markets — roughly 50% of European packaging steel — removing a close competitive constraint on each other.

The divestment remedies on offer were judged inadequate by the Commission; Thyssenkrupp insisted they were sufficient, and the gap was never closed.

The Commission blocked the deal without needing dominance, under its significant-impediment-to-competition doctrine — a bar the parties had misjudged when sizing their remedy offer.

It was clear by early May 2019 that Brussels would block, but the partners had built a single-track strategy with no fallback.

A remedy built for last year's question may miss the regulator's real one: the divestments were sized for a dominance theory Brussels had moved past, and when the veto came there was no plan B.

Thyssenkrupp filed an annulment action at the General Court in August 2019; it was dismissed in June 2022 and the CJEU affirmed the prohibition on 4 October 2024, so the veto stands. Thyssenkrupp said its Steel Europe division would remain in the group long-term, and its strategic reset extended to plans to list or sell the elevators business. Tata Steel said it would explore all options for the European unit, including finding a new partner or a partial sale of assets.