Recent Situations
In November 2006, an American embassy cable released via Wikileaks listed Cemex among "Mexico's monopolists", with a market share of 87.6%; its competitor Holcim Apasco was listed with a market share of 12.4%.
Shortly after the apparent finalization of the Rinker deal on 2007, the United States Department of Justice brought an antitrust lawsuit against CEMEX, blocking the acquisition. After a lengthy process, CEMEX complied with regulators by divesting (selling) 40+ cement and concrete plants formerly part of itself or Rinker, essentially devaluing the initial deal.
In April 2008 the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, announced the nationalization of "the whole cement industry" in that country, in response to the belief that the industry was exporting its products in order to receive prices above those it was allowed within the country. In mid-2008 the Venezuelan government took over the Venezuelan operations of CEMEX, the largest Venezuelan producer with around a 50% market share; a deal on compensation was still to be reached in March 2009, despite agreements being reached in mid-2008 with the other two major cement producers. In December 2011 an agreement was reached, with Cemex receiving $600m in compensation, and benefiting from the cancellation of $154m in debt.
After having problems with the Mexican peso devaluation of 2008, including problems with derivatives, CEMEX had to rethink its international standings to decrease debt and avoid a default. In June 2009, CEMEX sold its Australian operations to Holcim for A$ 2.2 billion (US$1.75 billion) helping refinance its US$ 14 billion debt, which partly was due to the acquisition, two years earlier, of the Rinker Group.
In December 2010 DOL Resolves Employee Back Wage Case With CEMEX - The U.S. Department of Labor announced the filing of a consent judgment in a case against CEMEX Inc. and the recovery of $1,514,449 in overtime back wages for 1,705 current and former ready-mix drivers who worked in eight states.
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