Tribunal directs cement firms to pay 10% of Rs6,300-cr CCI fine in a week

The Competition Appellate Tribunal (Compat) has lifted a stay on the penalty imposed by antitrust watchdog Competition Commission of India (CCI) on around 11 of India's top cement makers, for alleged cartelisation, in June last year.

The tribunal today directed the companies to pay Rs690 crore of the Rs6,300 crore that they had been collectively fined, within a month.

Compact made it clear that it would hear their case only if the companies pay the token amount of Rs690 crore within a week.

The list of affected companies include Associated Cement Companies Ltd (ACC), Ambuja Cement, Binani Cement, JK Cement, Jaypee Associates, UltraTech Cements, the Indian unit of France's Lafarge SA and four others as also the industry body the Cement Manufacturer's Association.

Of the Rs690-crore cumulative fine, the actual amount that individual cement companies would have to pay varies from company to company depending on the amount of fine that was originally imposed by the CCI on each of these companies.

The maximum burden would be on Jaiprakash Associates, which faces a fine of about Rs130 crore.

The CCI had, last year, penalised the cement companies for concerted underuse of plant capacities to create an artificial shortage of cement. They, however, deny any price fixing.

Ambuja Cements has, meanwhile, agreed to pay about Rs116.3 crore and several others are expected to pay.

Compact has fixed the next hearing of the case for August.

An interim order can only be challenged through a writ petition but according to the legal counsel of many of these companies, there is little taste for a battle with the government.