Green signal for Lafarge-Holcim merger after Dalmia Cements withdraws appeal

The merger of global cement giants Lafarge and Holcim in India has been given a go-ahead today with the Competition Appellate Tribunal  allowing Dalmia Cements to withdraw it’s appeal.

The COMPAT today accepted an application for withdrawal made by Dalmia Cement, which had earlier challenged the supplementary order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on February 2, 2016 directing the sale of Lafarge’s India business.

Following Dalmia’s appeal, the COMPAT had stayed the sale of 11 million tonnes of cement capacity held by Lafarge India Pvt. Ltd.

Today, instead of arguing the appeal, Dalmia Cements made an application for withdrawal of the appeal. Senior Advocate Ramji Srinivasan, advised by Luthra & Luthra, argued that because of the uncertainties in the Mines and Mineral Act in relation to mining and prospecting licenses, the appeal had become unwarranted.

The Luthra team included H.S. Chandhoke, G.R. Bhatia, Abdullah Hussain, Kanika Chaudhary Nayar and others

Senior counsel Rajiv Dutta appearing for the CCI submitted that CCI doesn’t have any serious objections but costs should be awarded. He submitted that Dalmia’s appeal was frivolous in nature. However, the request for imposing costs was denied.

Holcim-Lafarge represented by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas along with Advocate Rajshekhar Rao did not object to the withdrawal.

The Cyril Amarchand team included Partner Nisha Kaur Uberoi along with Soumya Hariharan, Aishwarya Gopalakrishnan, Neelambera Sandeepan, Arunima Chandra, Kaustav Kundu, Atreyee Sarkar