“Holsim” will encase the attackers in “Cementum”
The company has changed the names of its assets in Russia, but the legal battles with unsuccessful owners are still ongoing. The cement manufacturer Holcim has rebranded its Russian assets to “Cementum” and transferred them to local management, marking a new phase of business development.
The Russian company Cementum emerged after the international company Holcim decided to exit the Russian market and hand over its Russian assets to local management in December 2022. All CEMENTUM company enterprises continue to operate fully in Russia, according to a statement by the company.
BV found that the application for the trademark “Cementum” was submitted on January 30 and is currently under review by Rospatent.
JSC New Group acted as the applicant. It was established on December 1 last year, with unknown founders, and the same general director as all assets containing the word “in Russia” – Maxim Goncharov. The company is headquartered in Moscow, with an authorized capital of 10,000 rubles, and its main activity is holding.Holsim“in Russia – Maxim Goncharov. The company is based in Moscow, the authorized capital is 10 thousand rubles, the main activity is the holding.
At the same time, the companyHolsim (ENG) Building Materials” lawsuits continue, because of attempts to seize the group’s enterprises. In November, the cement manufacturer filed lawsuits in the capital’s arbitration against the companies “Ronadana”, “Paritet”, “Tekhinkom”, “Tsentorion”, “Megalodon”, and “Mega -resource”. The plaintiffs are seeking to terminate and invalidate the supply contracts with these companies. The failure to fulfill these supposedly paid contracts was the reason for some individuals to demand over 400 million rubles from the enterprises, and subsequently talk about the transfer of ownership of Russian assets.
Two lawsuits have already been resolved by the court – the supposedly existing contracts with Rondana LLC for 290 million rubles and with Paritet LLC for 406 million rubles were found to be not concluded due to the plaintiff's lack of intention to conclude them and no funds were received by the plaintiff.
This is how the applied scheme is described in the arbitration decision regarding Paritet LLC. Here “Holsim” demonstrated that the contract with the company did not exist at all, and no money was received according to the payment order.
Since August 2022, the plaintiff has been consistently receiving mail from unknown legal entities, including Paritet. The attachments were labeled as a “claim” or “statement” in the inventory, but other correspondence was enclosed in the envelopes, as confirmed by the certificates of opening letters issued by the Russian Post and the commission “Holsim (ENG) SM,” the court documents state.
The arbitration also questioned Mr. Goncharov, and received statements from employees about the absence of contracts with Paritet and its mention in all electronic systems recording the plaintiff's transactions.
After reviewing the copy of the supply contract submitted to the case, the court determined that the specified contract is a framework one and does not comply with the standard form of the supply contract of LLC “Holsim (RUS) SM” and the general terms of supply contracts approved by orders of the general director of the company, the court notes.
A copy of the specification also did not become an argument for the defendant: the arbitration considered that its content was information from the public domain, relevant only for the retail sale of the company’s products.
The payment order presented by Paritet also did not stand up to criticism: Intesa Bank JSC stated that such a company had never been its client, and the current account in the document does not belong “Holsimat”.
In the decision on the suit against Rondana LLC, the court indicates that the signature of the general director of LLC “Holsim (ENG) Building materials” Goncharova M.V. is not original. According to the conclusion of the Center for Digital Forensics and Law, it was applied using computer editing by using part of the seventh sheet of the Audit Report of an independent auditor “Holsim (Rus) SM” for 2021.
Rondana also did not transfer 290 million rubles – the copies of payment documents submitted by it contain details of other legal entities, and the payments themselves are not in the company’s bank statement provided by Otkritie Bank.
Both judgments were issued in December 2022 and appear to have already entered into force, with no appeals filed. Probably, the courts will go through the same scheme with the rest of the alleged clients “Holsim“. Claims have only been accepted for consideration, the amounts of the contested contracts have not yet appeared in court documents.
Help “BV”. The main products of the group are the production of cements, concrete, dry building mixtures, as well as crushed stone and granite. In Russia, the concern operates four cement plants and three quarries for the extraction of non-metallic materials. Plant LLC “Holsim (Rus)”, located in the city of Volsk, Saratov region, has an authorized capital of 6.3 million rubles, 99.76% of the company belongs to OJSC “Holsim(Rus) SM, the rest is owned by the German company Holcim Auslandbeteiligungs GmbH. In 2017, a five-year modernization of the Volsky plant was completed with an investment of more than 280 million euros. Revenue in 2020 amounted to 5.1 billion rubles with a net loss of 3.1 billion, in 2021 revenue increased to 5.7 billion rubles (by 14%), the loss decreased to 1.1 million rubles.
