Lithium giant clears hurdle in $4.1bn SQM stake buyout

China’s Tianqi Lithium cleared a major hurdle in its bid to buy a $4.1-billion stake in SQM, the world’s second-largest producer of the mineral used in electric-vehicle batteries.

On Thursday, Chile’s constitutional court declared inadmissible a suit questioning whether an agreement between Tianqi and Chile’s antitrust agency FNE went far enough to protect SQM’s trade secrets against its Chinese competitor.