Argos USA, liability heir, cooperates in feds’ concrete price-fixing investigation

Sources: U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division; CP staff Argos USA has entered a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) resolving a DOJ Antitrust Division charge of conspiring to fix prices, rig bids and allocate sales for ready mixed concrete in Savannah and neighboring markets under U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia jurisdiction. 

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Arbitrator closes HeidelbergCement earnout claim in Forterra’s favor

Sources: Forterra Inc., Irving, Texas; CP staff

A neutral accounting arbitrator has determined that no earnout payment from concrete pipe and precast giant Forterra is due to HeidelbergCement AG under terms of a 2015 Hanson Building Products business spinoff, initially valued at $1.2 billion. HeidelbergCement had sought a $100 million earnout payment based on the fiscal 2015 performance of Hanson Building Products, whose Dallas-based suitor, Lone Star Fund IX (U.S.) LP, adopted the Forterra brand. The Delaware Court of Chancery deferred an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) calculation—central to the earnout payment clause—to the arbitrator in conjunction with a late-2017 dismissal of a HeidelbergCement suit.

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Texas attorney spins novel challenge to batch plant expansion

Sources: Office of Harris County (Texas) Attorney Vince Ryan, Houston; CP staff

A recently filed lawsuit to block placement of a second batch plant at the Concrete Pros Ready Mix Inc. site in southeast Houston has Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan testing for the first time the applicability of a Texas public nuisance law—often used to shut down illegal game rooms, massage parlors, smoke shops, and motels that permit prostitution—to construction materials production. 

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