Displaying items by tag: Legal

Lithuania: Akmenes Cementas has managed to strike a deal with its creditors over the extension of a loan it took out in 2007. The cement producer has been in talks with various banks since mid-2016 to postpone the loan settlement deadline by three years, according to the Baltic Business Daily. However, Akmenes Cementas went to court and asked for an obligation for the banks to comply with the loan payment schedule signed in May 2017. Legal action was dropped in late September 2017 when the banks agreed to continue crediting the company under a deal. The loan currently stands at Euro53m.

US: WeissLaw is investigating the proposed sale of Ash Grove Cement to Ireland’s CRH on the grounds of whether the board acted to maximise shareholder value prior to the deal. Citing an article by financial markets research company Seeking Alpha the law firm says it is exploring whether rising demand for cement due to expected government infrastructure spending, the company’s high market share in certain regions and its recent growth in operating earnings were fully taken into account when valuing the company. CRH and Ash Grove Cement announced the US$3.5bn deal in late September 2017.

Italy: Cementir has defended its conduct in an illegal waste investigation. It expressed ‘full confidence’ in the Prosecutor’s Office of Lecce following the decision by a judge to seize a power plant run by Enel, according to Reuters. The probe is exploring whether Cementir Italia’s Taranto plant purchased ‘illegal’ by-products from Enel and the ILVA steel plant to produce cement. Cementir confirmed that it had regularly purchased fly ash for its Taranto plant but that this ended at the start of 2016. It added that its use of sludge in cement production was covered by an Integrated Environmental Authorisation.

France: French investigators have interviewed three former Lafarge Syria workers as part of an inquiry in to the company’s conduct in Syria. A computer worker, an engineer and packing line worker at one of the company’s cement plants travelled from Syria to be questioned, according to the Agence France Presse. The trio are the first witnesses to be called by the judicial inquiry that started in June 2017. It is investigating whether the subsidiary of Lafarge indirectly paid armed groups, including the ‘Islamic State’ group, to keep its plant during the Syrian Civil War.

Israel: A US$34bn lawsuit by Palestinian activists against a group of businesses including CRH has been dismissed by a court in Washington DC. The activists had tried to sue various groups with connections to Israel for allegedly ‘profiteering’ from the building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, according to the Irish Independent newspaper. CRH was targeted due to its former co-ownership of Nesher, which produced cement used by the Israeli government in the West Bank. Before it sold its 25% stake in the Israeli cement producer in late 2015 CRH had received protests at its annual general meeting.

India: The Delhi High Court has rejected an appeal by Dalmia Bharat in a coal import deal with Glencore that went wrong. The cement producer will now be required to pay US$4.3m in damages and US$0.27m in interest, according to the DNA newspaper. Dalmia Cement, part of Dalmia Bharat Group, originally arranged a deal to import coal in multiple consignments. However it later refused to accept some of the shipments citing poor quality. Glencore then won damages at an arbitration tribunal that ruled that Dalmia had breached its contract.

India: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has ordered three cement plants to stop operation and issued show-cause notices to 11 other units in Telangana. Kakatiya Cements in Nalgonda, Mancherial Cements in Mancherial and the government owned Cement Corporation of India at Tandur have been issued with closure notices, according to the new Indian Express newspaper. Around 240 cement factories across the country have been sent either closure or show-cause notices.

The campaign follows an initiative asking selected industries to install online pollution monitoring systems which are to be connected to the CPCB as well as State Pollution Control Board servers to ensure real-time monitoring of pollution emission of industries. Cement plants have also been sent show-cause notices for failing to meet new emissions standards set by the CPCB.

Lithuania: Akmenės Cementas is fighting a legal battle over the repayment of a Euro40m loan it took out in 2007. The cement producer started negotiating in September 2016 with its creditors to have the repayment deferred by three years, according to the Baltic Business Daily. However the deal was blocked by the Baltijos Kredito Sprendimai, which inherited the portfolio of the bankrupt bank Snoras. On 15 June 2017 the Vilnius Regional Court temporarily banned Akmenės Cementas’ six creditors from taking loan repayments from its accounts with the exception of interest payments.

Akmenes Cementas built a new Euro110m production line in late 2014. The company used its own funds and the loan to finance the project.

Colombia: The Office of the Attorney General is preparing to present charges against three individuals involved in the sale of property in Maceo, Antioquia to Cemex for a new cement plant project. They are Edgar Ramirez Martinez, the former deputy director of Planning at Cemex, Camilo Gonzalez Tellez, the former legal director of Cemex Colombia and Eugenio Correa Diaz, the representative of CI Calizas, which sold the property to the cement producer, according to the El Tiempo newspaper.

The former employees of Cemex allegedly paid US$13.7m to Correa, despite being aware of the fact that the property, which formerly belonged to the deceased businessman Jose Aldemar Moncada, was in the process of being expropriated over unpaid taxes. It is also alleged that the funds never reached the accounts of CI Calizas, having been primarily used to pay off debts of Aldemar Moncada.

France: The French judiciary has launched an inquiry into the Syrian conduct of LafargeHolcim. Three judges, one dealing with anti-terrorism matters and two financial judges, will handle the probe that opened on 9 June 2017, according to Agence France Presse. The prosecutors will examine the ‘financing of a terrorist enterprise’ and whether the actions of the building materials producer had endangered lives.

LafargeHolcim admitted in March 2017 that its staff at a cement plant in Syria in 2013 and 2014 had struck deals with armed groups, following an investigation by the French newspaper La Monde in mid-2016. It is also alleged that Lafarge, one of the companies that merged to become LafargeHolcim in 2015, purchased oil in Syria in violation of international sanctions. The group’s chief executive officer Eric Olsen then resigned after the completion of a review into the affair in April 2017 despite not being found personally culpable or even aware of the situation. However, the review found that selected members of group management had been aware of the situation at the time.