Displaying items by tag: Legal

Pakistan: Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjb, has approved summary legislation banning the installation of new cement plants in the province on environmental grounds. The summary will be passed to standing committees on legislation for deliberation and recommendations, according to the Nation newspaper. The region has 12 cement plants, of which eight are located in the Salt Range of hills, where local residents have become increasingly intolerant of new industrial plants due to damage to underground water tables and increased air pollution.

The summary will also examine expansion plans by existing cement plants in the province and it has hired a consultancy, Artelia, to study the situation. The Supreme Court of Pakistan also being looking at the issue separately. However, the local cement industry is in an expansion mode as it copes with resident and public sector construction markets and large-scale infrastructure projects driven by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative.

Colombia: Cemex Colombia has paid a US$25.3m fine to the Superintendent of Industry and Commerce (SIC). The penalty follows an investigation into price fixing by Cemex, Cementos Argos, and Holcim and six senior managers, according to the El Economista newspaper. However Cemex plans to lodge an appeal with the Contentious Administrative Court to reverse the fine.

The fine covers behaviour by the companies between January 2010 and December 2012. SIC’s investigation discovered that collusion between the cement producers artificially increased the price of cement by 30% despite inflation being 9% during the period.

Slovenia: LafargeHolcim has lost a legal battle for an environmental permit at its Trbovlje cement plant. The cement producer appealed against a decision by the Environment Agency to decline to issue its consent to the company in May 2016, according to the Slovenian Press Agency. The company has been attempting to increase its cement production capacity to 1250t/day by using petcoke as a fuel.

Nigeria: Devakumar Edwin, the executive director of Dangote Cement, has accused BUA Group of illegally mining limestone at a site near Okene in the south of Kogi state. He made the comments at a press conference in response to public comments by Abdulsamad Rabiu, the chief executive officer (CEO) of BUA Group, that Dangote Cement had ‘sabotaged’ its operations, according to the This Day newspaper. The dispute between Dangote Cement, the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development and BUA is currently pending before the Federal High Court.

According to Edwin, Dangote Group first acquired an interest in the mining lease in 2014 after a previous company obtained the rights in 2007. However, BUA claimed access to the lease when it later purchased Edo Cement, a company also operating in the area. BUA Group responded to Edwin’s claims by stating that it does not have any operations in Okene, Kogi State where the disputed lease is located.

India: The Supreme Court has lifted a ban on petcoke and furnace oil to the cement and power industries in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The court also directed the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) to set regulations for the sale of petcoke and fix emission standards for thermal power plants, according to the Indo-Asian News Service agency. Representatives of the cement industry have welcomed the ruling. The Central Pollution Control Board and the MEF issued the ban following a directive from the Supreme Court in late October 2017 prohibiting industries in the three neighbouring states of Delhi from using the polluting fuels.

France: Lawyers on behalf of the human rights group Sherpa have accused Lafarge of paying nearly Euro13m to armed groups including Islamic State between 2011 and 2015 in order to keep a cement plant operating during the Syrian civil war. They made the statement at a new conference about a preliminary inquiry into the affair, according to Reuters. The lawyers said that a large portion of the money went directly or indirectly to Islamic State and that the payments continued after Lafarge's Jalabiya cement plant was closed in September 2014. They used a figure taken from an internal report by Baker and McKenzie that was commissioned for LafargeHolcim.

Uzbekistan: The government has ruled that cement producers must sell cement only through exchange auctions from 1 January 2018. Cement not sold through first trades can then be re-exhibited within one month before it will be allowed to be sold for export under direct contract, according to the Trend News Agency. A ban on the resale of the products purchased on the exchange is cancelled.

France: Eric Olsen, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of LafargeHolcim, has been placed under formal investigation as part of an inquiry into the company’s conduct in Syria, according to a source quoted by Reuters. He has also been placed under judicial supervision. Olsen had previously been questioned along with Bruno Lafont, the former CEO of Lafarge, and Christian Herraul, the former deputy managing director for operations.

Olsen was the head of human relations during the period the probe is covering. LafargeHolcim’s predecessor company Lafarge Syria allegedly paid terrorist groups in Syria to allow a cement plant to continue operating during the Syrian civil war. Olsen later became the CEO of LafargeHolcim when Lafarge merged with Holcim in 2015. However, he resigned in April 2017 following an internal review of the situation. At this time he said that his decision was motivated by his desire to draw a line under the affair. He added that he was ‘absolutely’ not involved in the case and had been unaware of any wrongdoing.

France: Bruno Lafont, the former chief executive officer (CEO) of Lafarge, has been questioned in an investigation into the company’s conduct in Syria. Lafont was interviewed, as well as the former human resources chief Eric Olsen and former deputy managing director for operations Christian Herrault, according to sources quoted by Agence France Presse.

The investigation is attempting to determine whether LafargeHolcim’s predecessor company Lafarge Syria paid terrorist groups in Syria and how much managers knew about the situation. Lafont was the CEO of Lafarge during the period the inquiry is examining. Olsen later became CEO of LafargeHolcim but resigned after the completion of an internal review into the affair in April 2017, despite not being found personally culpable or even aware of the situation.

India: The Ministry of Environment and Forest (MEF) is considering exempting cement plants and power companies from a ban on using petcoke and furnace oil for industrial use in Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Additional solicitor general A Nadkarni informed the Supreme Court that the use of petcoke in the cement industry was ‘minuscule,’ for non-fuel purposes and that it is used for de-sulphuring, according to the Hindustan Times. However, the exemption, if granted, will only be allowed for one year to allow cement companies to switch to alternative fuels.

The Central Pollution Control Board and the MEF issued the ban following a directive from the Supreme Court in late October 2017 prohibiting industries in the three neighbouring states of Delhi from using the polluting fuels. Use of petcoke and furnace oil is already banned in the capital region. The ban was imposed following high pollution levels in Delhi.