Lafarge Africa Plc’s plea contesting the court’s authority to hear a lawsuit against its planned sale of its shareholding to a Chinese investor has been dismissed by a Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos.

Strategic Consultancy Limited, a Nigerian business and shareholder in Lafarge Africa, had sued the cement company over its intention to sell off 83.8 percent of the parent company’s shares in the Nigerian cement company.

During the 2001 and 2002 privatization processes, Lafarge, which is traded on the Nigerian stock exchange, purchased 83 percent of the total shares of three cement businesses controlled by the federal government. The Swiss company, Holcim Group, which owns 83.81 percent of Lafarge Africa’s issued share capital, had restructured the company internally, the company had told the Security and Exchange Commission.

Strategic Consultancy had filed a lawsuit against Lafarge, Holcim Group, Nigerian Exchange Limited, and the Central Securities Clearing System in an attempt to halt the planned sale of Lafarge to the Chinese company, Huaxin Cement Limited on the following grounds: the sale was carried out covertly without giving Strategic Consultancy Limited and other minority shareholders the chance to purchase the shares; it was also done in violation of laws and regulations like the Companies & Allied Matters Act, 2020, the Securities & Exchange Act, and the Nigeria Investment Promotions Act on the rights of minority shareholders and the ban on dealings with unregistered foreign entities.

After hearing arguments from the plaintiff’s attorney, Dr. D.A. Awosika (SAN), the first defendant’s attorney, Babatunde Fagbohunlu (SAN), and the second defendant’s attorney, Uzoma Azikiwe (SAN), Justice Lewis Allagoa in a ruling issued on Thursday, May 15,dismissed the defense team’s preliminary objection that the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the case. Justice Allagoa declared, “The motion of the first and second defendants objecting to the Court’s jurisdiction is hereby dismissed.”

Additionally, the judge mandated that the respondents’ claimed owners of the shares, Caricement BV, Netherlands, and Associated International Cements Ltd, England, be added as fifth and sixth defendants, respectively.