Nippon Steel, Japan's biggest steelmaker, posted on Thursday an 18% drop in nine-month net profit to 362 billion yen ($2.4 billion) amid sluggish steel demand in Japan and overseas. On its bid for U.S.

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are asking a court to lift the block of their $14.9 billion merger. The steelmakers filed their opening brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit against former President Joe Biden and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel laid out their case Monday that then-President Joe Biden hamstrung a national security review to justify blocking the companies’ merger. An opening brief filed in the U.S.