Shuttered smelter owner must fulfill legal obligations, Missouri attorney general says

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said his office is fully prepared to go after the owners of a shuttered aluminum facility in Marston for failing to uphold various regulatory standards.

Andrew Bailey

In a Friday, Feb. 16, letter to Matt Lucke, owner of Swiss-based ARG International AG, Bailey said he would use every tool at his disposal to make the company’s Magnitude 7 Metals smelter fulfill legal and environmental commitments to Missouri.

"The State of Missouri is not asking for anything extraordinary. We’re just asking them to live up to the commitments they made," Bailey told the Southeast Missourian on Wednesday, Feb. 22.

Magnitude 7 Metals closed Jan. 28, seven and a half years after it took over the facility from the bankrupt Noranda Aluminum and six years after it restarted operations there.

It had employed more than 400 workers and produced around one-fifth of the country’s aluminum supply.

According to a Feb. 7 letter from U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, which Bailey alluded to, Magnitude 7 Metals gave employees just four days’ notice before shutting down.

This, Hawley wrote, could be a violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act of 1988 that requires 60 days’ notice before mass layoffs.

The company was also required by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to address the environmental effects of the plant, particularly with regard to its sulfur dioxide emissions.

Bailey said those measures still exist even if the plant closes down. He questioned how often Lucke may have tried to amend the agreement to more manageable levels, which would have allowed the company to continue production for longer.

"I think it’s unfair and deceptive ... for the company to say they’re unable to live up to the agreements they made with DNR and not engage with DNR to find more palatable mitigation measures," the attorney general said.

If Magnitude 7 Metals were to uphold those agreements, Bailey said the property could be more valuable to potential buyers.

"It’s our understanding that there are people interested in purchasing this plant, to the extent that there are offers to buy the plant," Bailey said, though he did not have further details on the offers.

However, the attorney general said Lucke had ignored offers from the interested parties, which could violate antitrust laws.

"If a company is refusing to sell to a competitor in order to manipulate the marketplace, then the state has the authority to move in under antitrust law to make sure the laws are followed and we have a free, fair and open market," Bailey said.

The attorney general said lawsuits would be the best method to obtain redress.

"We will pursue them wherever necessary using the long arm of the law to ensure that they fulfill their commitments under the statutes," he said.