EU probes Chinese plant purchase

European titanium dioxide makers have asked the European Commission to investigate China’s LB Group over its planned purchase of a UK pigment plant. (euronews.com) The complaint targets LB Group’s deal for Venator’s Greatham site in northeast England, a plant now in an idle state after Venator said market conditions had hurt its finances. Venator signed the sale agreement with LB Group in October 2025. (venatorcorp.com) The producers’ case was filed in December 2025, according to Euronews, and argues that Chinese state support may be helping finance the acquisition. The alliance includes Tronox, Kronos, Precheza and Cinkarna, which Euronews said account for about 90% of European Union titanium dioxide output. (euronews.com) Titanium dioxide is the white pigment used in paint, plastics, paper laminates and other industrial products. The European Commission said on January 9, 2025 that it had imposed definitive anti-dumping duties on Chinese titanium dioxide after finding dumped imports were harming an EU industry employing almost 5,000 people. (policy.trade.ec.europa.eu) Those duties range from €0.25 to €0.74 per kilogram, and the case remains in force until January 10, 2030 on the Commission’s trade-defence register. Under EU rules, anti-dumping duties are extra import charges used when exporters sell abroad below normal value and injure domestic producers. (policy.trade.ec.europa.eu) (tron.trade.ec.europa.eu) (trade.ec.europa.eu) The producers’ concern is that a UK-based plant could ship into the European Union without those China-specific duties, because the goods would no longer be entering from China. Euronews reported that this is the core argument behind the request for Brussels to act. (euronews.com) The legal tool they want Brussels to use is the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, adopted in 2022 to examine whether non-European companies benefit from state aid that distorts competition in the bloc. Euronews said the rule has not yet been applied to a transaction involving an asset outside the European Union. (euronews.com) Britain is running its own review in parallel. The UK Competition and Markets Authority opened its merger inquiry on March 16, 2026 and set May 15, 2026 as the deadline for its Phase 1 decision. (gov.uk) LB Group has said it wants to restart Greatham in the future and fold it into its global production network. In an October 23, 2025 statement, the company said the purchase would support European customers and expand its global footprint. (lomonbillions.global) Beijing has pushed back against the wider trend. China’s Commerce Ministry said in December 2024 that the European Union had opened 15 trade-remedy investigations targeting China that year, and urged Brussels to avoid what it called abuse of those measures. (english.news.cn) The next test is whether Brussels turns an industry complaint into a formal case before the UK review ends on May 15. If it does, a dispute over one plant in Greatham could become a precedent for how Europe polices subsidized takeovers just outside its borders. (gov.uk) (euronews.com)