Article by Viory
French cement giant Lafarge was found guilty of paying millions of dollars to jihadist groups, including Islamic State, to maintain operations in Syria during the civil war, in a landmark ruling on corporate accountability.
Presiding judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said the payments enabled banned organisations to seize control of natural resources, helping fund attacks across the Middle East and Europe.
The Paris court said Lafarge paid $6.5 million (€5.59 million) between 2013 and 2014 to armed groups controlling territory in northern Syria, allowing its cement plant in Jalabiya to continue operating amid escalating conflict.
“The court clearly pointed out that while the company claimed it was staying in Syria to protect its employees, that was not the case—it was actually to protect its €680 million investment,” said Sherpa association spokesperson Anna Kiefer.
“Lafarge was convicted today of financing terrorism, but an investigation is still ongoing, with Lafarge under investigation for complicity in crimes against humanity, and we hope there will be further convictions that will allow Syrian employees to obtain compensation,” she further added.
The ruling is considered a landmark case for corporate responsibility, particularly as the headquarters of the multinational has been implicated in the conduct of a subsidiary and due to the fact that former executives have been convicted and will serve jail time over their roles.
“The Court was able to demonstrate that it was the company’s vast resources—mobilised through its subsidiaries—that were used to set up this illegal payment system. In other words, multinationals can no longer hide or absolve themselves of all responsibility by shifting the blame onto their subsidiaries in the production chain,” explained Claire Tixeire, Co-Director at the Institute for Legal Intervention, ECCHR.
Former executives convicted of financing terrorism include ex-CEO Bruno Lafont, who was sentenced to six years in prison, while former deputy managing director Christian Herrault received a five-year sentence, whose legal counsels announced they would appeal the conviction.
“We are still just as shocked whenever we witness a decision of such severity. The severity of the verdict is matched by the lack of justification for the conviction,” stated Jacqueline Laffont, who represented Bruno Lafont.
“This spectacle is outrageous. I do not see justice in this decision,” stated Solange Doumic, lawyer for Christian Herrault, former deputy chief operating officer at Lafarge. Doumic claimed that Herrault should not have been convicted because he “never gained a single penny in personal profit,” admitting that his client stayed ’10 months too long’ in a the country as it fell apart in civil war, but describing the move as “an error in judgment, not a crime.”
The case centres on Lafarge’s operations in northern Syria between 2011 and 2014, when the company continued to produce cement amid escalating violence, before the plant was eventually seized by Islamic State fighters.
In 2022, Lafarge pleaded guilty in the US to charges of providing support to groups in Syria designated as ‘terrorist organisations’ by Washington and was hit with a fine of $778-million. The US justice department had earlier announced that Lafarge was suspected of entering into a ‘revenue sharing agreement’ with Islamic State, reportedly in exchange for suppressing fair competition.
The Jalabiya plant, acquired by Lafarge in 2008 for 680 million euros, began operations in 2010, shortly before Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011.
Article by Viory
Related Post:
French pres can’t resist Dragon Ball ‘Kamehameha’ with Japanese PM
Share this content:
