Displaying items by tag: Court

France/Syria: Four Lafarge Cement Syria executives, including Bruno Lafont, CEO of Lafarge from 2006 until its 2015 merger with Holcim, have appeared in court in France to challenge their June 2017 indictments on charges of funding terrorism. This related alleged payments by Lafarge Cement Syria of Euro13m to IS to ensure the safe activity of its Syrian sites throughout the country’s civil war. A ruling will be handed down on 24 October 2019. Agence France Presse has reported that the Syrian-Canadian Amro Taleb, a former Lafarge Cement Syria intermediary whom executives have described as a ‘crook,’ has been indicted on the same charge.

US: Cementos Argos has won its case before the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Spartan Construction accused it of unlawfully selling cement at a lower price to a competing buyer in the US Virgin Islands. Mondaq reports that Argos traded with both Spartan and Heavy Materials on St. Thomas between 2010 and 2013, when Spartan withdrew its ready-mix concrete business from the island. Only the latter received a 10% volume discount. The court found Argos not in violation of competition law due to lack of proof of harm attributable to discriminatory prices.

Kenya: PricewaterhouseCoopers has rejected Rai Group’s bank guarantee of US$12.5m as part of its US$62.6m bid for ownership of ARM Cement. The bid constituted an attempt to forestall the latter’s sale to Devki Group subsidiary National Cement, which remains under the scrutiny of the courts. Business Daily has reported that Rai Group’s offer failed due to an insufficient expiry period of nine months on the guarantee, exposing the seller to untenable risk.

Belarus: The Council of Ministers has received a recommendation from the State Control Commission (SCC) that punitive measures be taken against officials responsible for cement production in the midst of another disappointing year. Belapan has reported that members of the SCC blamed the failure to secure efficient performance on untenable costs due to intermediaries. Investigators from the SCC’s Financial Investigations Department (FID) found that Russian intermediaries were selling cement produced in Belarus to Belarusian state-owned companies at a marked-up price. A total of 13 criminal cases have been opened in connection with the findings, including one against an executive of a Belarusian cement company.

In 2013, Belarus completed the modernisation of its three state-owned cement producers, Belarusian Cement, Krasnoselsktroymaterialy and Krichevcementnoshifer to a total capacity of 2.3Mt/yr, at a cost of US$1.1bn. In 2018, the companies missed eight of their 10 key performance targets. Besides cost reduction, capacity utilisation and labour productivity targets were not met.

Elsewhere, Krasnoselsktroymaterialy has tendered for the supply of gas cleaning equipment, including the replacement of bag filters at two of the mills in its grinding facility.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton’s credit manager from 2009 to 2017 appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court accused of defrauding the company of US$8.52m over 230 different occasions. ABC news has reported that the defendant stands charged of aggravated deception and dishonestly dealing with documents.

Australia: A general labourer and rigger who worked for Macweld Industries, contracted by Adelaide Brighton at its Birkenhead cement plant, is suing the cement company. The Advertiser has reported that the man is seeking damages for Adelaide Brighton’s ‘failure to take reasonable action to minimise risk of injury,’ which allegedly led to the man falling through a hole during upgrade works on the plant in 2016. The man previously received an unspecified sum in worker’s compensation benefits from his erstwhile employer.

Kenya: Rai Group must pay a guarantee of US$62.6m to forestall the sale of Athi River Mining (ARM) Cement. The Kenyan financial services company, owned by Jaswant Rai, is backing a claim by Pradeep Paunrana against PricewaterhouseCoopers over its administration of the sale of the publically-owned ARM Cement. Paunrana, erstwhile majority shareholder and managing director of ARM Cement, is contesting the cement company’s sale in May 2019 to Nairobi Cement, a subsidiary of Devki Group, for US$48.2m including a deposit of US$9.62m. Paunrana argues that the sale was unfair because ARM Cement was misvalued, having missed opportunities to sell its fertiliser and mineral production businesses due to pressures from potential buyers. Business Daily has reported that Paunrana previously submitted an unsuccessful bid in consortium with Rai Group to buy back the company for US$62.6m, also May 2019.

Israel: The Supreme Court has posted a temporary injunction preventing the Israel Ports Development & Assets Company and the Ashdod Port Company from halting the cement imports of Lev Baron Commodities. The injunction was imposed in response to an appeal by Lev Baron against Israel Ports and Ashdod Port, according to Israel Business Arena. The move by the court is the latest in a battle between Lev Baron and Israel Ports over the terms of their relationship.

Lev Baron imports cement into Israel, mainly from Cyprus and Turkey. In 2015, it imported 800,000t of cement and is expected to reach 900,000t in 2016. Lev Baron’s imports account for 14% of the cement supply in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Australia: The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed an appeal against a US$12.6m fine against Cement Australia, which it views is too low. On 16 May 2016 a Federal Court published orders imposing a penalty of US$13.7m on the cement producer. One order was then set aside, reducing the fine to US$12.6m. However, the ACCC contends that a penalty of over US$66m is more appropriate for the breaches of Australia’s competition legislation.

“The ACCC will argue to the Full Court that the penalties imposed on Cement Australia are manifestly inadequate, and not of appropriate deterrent value,” said ACCC Chairman Rod Sims. He added that suitable financial penalties were considered ‘essential’ as a deterrent to anti-competitive conduct and to prevent businesses viewing such behaviour as an acceptable cost of doing business.

The proceedings relate to contracts that were entered into by Cement Australia companies between 2002 and 2006 with four power stations in South East Queensland, to acquire fly ash. The court found numerous contraventions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. It also fined Christopher White, a manager in the Cement Australia fly ash business during the relevant period, a penalty of US$14,700 for his involvement in making the contravening contracts with the operator of the Swanbank power station in 2005.

India: The Calcutta High Court has dismissed two petitions by members of the Birla family intending to challenge the takeover of Reliance Infrastructure by Birla Corporation. Justice Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya held that the petitions were not maintainable stating that decisions taken by the directors could not be called into question by the probate court.

The challenge by the Birla family represents the latest move in a long-running legal battle between the family and accountant R S Lodha, father of the current chairman of Birla Corporation. The cement company announced in February 2016 that it was planning to buy Reliance Infrastructure for US$715m.