Russian court to hear Eurocement antitrust case

Russian court to hear Eurocement antitrust case
16 June 2006


The Federal Arbitration Court for the Moscow court district has scheduled for July 3 the hearings of a complaint filed by the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) seeking to oblige Russia’s largest cement producer Eurocement to cease alleged antitrust violations, a court official told Prime-Tass Thursday. The antitrust watchdog is challenging a ruling of Russia’s Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeals, dated March 31, which canceled the FAS’ ruling that obliged Eurocement to cease the violations. 
 
Under the FAS’ ruling Eurocement was expected to pay 1.915 billion rubles of its uncompetitive earnings to the federal government.  The FAS also obliged Eurocement to lower its weighted average cement price to no more than 1361 rubles per tonne (US$50.5) and set its maximum cement price at 1497 rubles per tonne (US$55.5). The prices exclude value-added tax (VAT) and railway transportation tariffs.
 
 Eurocement controls 13 cement plants in Russia and two plants in Ukraine. Eurocement’s annual production capacity totals 33 million tonnes. Eurocement Group holds 55.5 per cent in Eurocement, while Russia Partners, an affiliate of US private equity firm Siguler Guff & Company, controls 44.4 per cent. 
Published under Cement News