Sep 11, 2026
Taxpayer Sues to Void Nebius $3.2 Billion Tax Abatement
The resolution that surrendered $3.234 billion in public tax revenue to a foreign-owned data center developer is three pages long. A lawsuit filed yesterday, September 10, 2026, says the board that adopted it had no power to do so.
Birmingham resident and taxpayer Terri Michal filed the action September 10 in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County against The Industrial Development Board of the City of Birmingham, its chairman in his official capacity, Nebius Inc., and Alabama ADC Holdings, LLC.
The complaint asks the court to declare the Board’s May 29 resolution and the abatement agreement executed under it void, and to bar every party from claiming the abatements with any taxing authority.
According to the complaint, the Board convened a special meeting on May 29, the last business day before two new Alabama laws took effect, each of which would have reduced the value of the overall benefit it was about to confer.
The Board voted in a matter of minutes to grant the abatements.
The complaint alleges that no notice of the meeting was given, and that the public did not learn of the vote for four weeks, until a news organization published a story sourced to an anonymous tipster.
The complaint describes a public corporation with no office of its own, no staff, no published address, no published minutes, and, until four days after the vote became public, no website.
It meets, the complaint says, in the headquarters of the Birmingham Business Alliance, the private business-recruitment organization whose constituents include the companies that seek abatements from the Board.
The only signature on the resolution belongs to a BBA employee who, the complaint alleges, is not a director of the Board, not an employee of the Board or the City, and not a public official of any kind.
The complaint further alleges that the Board’s sole published contact address routes to the chairman’s private business email.
The complaint also quotes the Mayor of Birmingham, who stated publicly on April 28 that Nebius “hasn’t asked the city for any incentives, and the city hasn’t provided any.” The Board voted to grant the abatements a month later.
The suit brings four counts:
- The Board failed to comply with the Tax Incentive Reform Act
- The May 29 gathering was not an open meeting and the Board had no power to act at it
- The Board’s action was arbitrary and capricious
- The Board unlawfully handed its statutory duty to its chairman and a private organization
Michal, who spoke at the City’s public hearing on the data center ordinance in May, alleges she would have attended the May 29 meeting had the notice the law requires been given.
The case is Michal v. The Industrial Development Board of the City of Birmingham, et al., 01-CV-2026-904054.00. The allegations described here are those set forth in the complaint filed in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama.