The government has received “expressions of interest from 15 national and international companies” for the troubled former ILVA steelworks in Taranto, Business Made in Italy Minister Adolfo Urso said on Saturday as the preliminary phase of an international tender for the facility concluded.
“Some companies have expressed an interest in the entire production assets, others in parts of them,” Urso said on the sidelines of an event in Catania about the plant, which has been renamed Acchiarieri d’Italia (AdI).
The steelworks, which employs around 11,000 people, was placed into special administration by the government earlier this year and ADI was declared bankrupt after multinational ArcelorMittal’s term as majority shareholder ended in an acrimonious manner.
The plant has been the subject of a long-running legal battle over its impacts on the environment and the health of local residents.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the steel plant was having significant adverse effects on the environment and the health of local residents.
The previous owners, the Riva family, were convicted of causing higher than normal cancer rates in Taranto, especially among children.
In March, AdI’s former CEO Lucia Morselli was investigated in Taranto for serious environmental and health and safety offences, along with former plant manager Alessandro Labile.
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