U.S. Wins Antitrust Arbitration Case Against Novelis, Aleris

The U.S. Justice Department won its first-ever antitrust case brought via arbitration in its challenge to Novelis Inc.'s $2.6 billion acquisition of aluminum parts maker Aleris Corp.

Novelis must divest Aleris’s entire aluminum auto body sheet operations in North America after arbitrator Kevin Arquit, a former Federal Trade Commission official, ruled in favor of the DOJ, the department said Monday in a press release.

“This first-of-its-kind arbitration proved to be an effective procedure for the streamlined adjudication of a dispositive issue in a merger challenge,” DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim said in a statement.

The DOJ blocked the Novelis-Aleris deal ...