Lafarge Trial: Cement firm fined, former CEO jailed

A French court has fined cement group Lafarge $1.3 million for paying the Islamic State group and other jihadists to keep its factory running in Syria during the civil war.

The court also sentenced the company’s former CEO Bruno Laffont to six years in jail. Laffont’s lawyer confirmed he will appeal the decision.

The Paris court found that Lafarge - now part of the Swiss conglomerate Holcim - paid almost 5.6 million euros in 2013 and 2014 via its subsidiary to jihadist groups, in order to keep its plant running in northern Syria at the height of the civil war.

It comes after a case in the US back in 2022, in which the firm pleaded guilty to conspiring to fund US-designated ‘terrorist’ organisations. Lafarge then agreed to pay a $778 million fine.

The company finished building a $680 million factory in Jabaliya in 2010, the year before the country’s civil war broke out amid opposition to Bashar al Assad’s repression of anti government demonstrations.

While other multinationals left Syria, Lafarge only evacuated its expatriate employees and kept its Syrian workers on site. It then paid intermediaries to access materials from the Islamic State and other groups in exchange for free movement for the company’s trucks and employees.