The Chinese industrial group that owned a British Steel plant in the U.K. said on July 19 that it will pursue the British government for compensation, reports BBC News.

China's Jingye Group said it will seek "full compensation through legal means to the very end" over the U.K.'s decision to fully nationalize the loss-making firm, announced on July 16.

The British government took control of the Scunthorpe steelworks in April 2025, after Jingye Group said it planned to close the site because it was not financially viable, then announced it was fully nationalizing the plant last week.

According to the BBC, a U.K. government spokesperson said draft compensation regulations due to be released in the autumn will set out a compensation process through which an independent assessor "would determine what, if any, is payable."

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Jingye bought the steel plant in 2020, but in March 2025 announced plans to close it, in the face of losses it claimed were £700,000 ($942,000) a day. At that point, the U.K. government took control of the company’s operations, but the plant remained under Jingye's ownership, limiting options for keeping it open. Now, the U.K. government said it was taking full ownership in order to safeguard a "vital national capability."