Funding terrorism: Lafarge pays out to bring US lawsuit to an end

lemonde – The French company was ordered to pay $778 million for ‘making the unthinkable choice’ of funding the Islamic State group in Syria between 2012 and 2014.Rather than face the shame of a trial and risk being ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages, the Lafarge group, now owned by Switzerland-based firm Holcim, preferred to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday, October 18, to charges of having funded the Islamic State group (IS). It agreed to pay $778 million (€790 million) to the US Department of Justice to put an end to the lawsuit in the United States.

The French company was being prosecuted by the US courts for having threatened the “national security” of the United States. This settlement in the US courts does not, however, shut down French investigations into the company and eight of its former executives for “funding terrorism” and “complicity in crimes against humanity” led by the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT). This last charge is contested by the lawyers for the Holcim group.

At a settlement hearing in New York, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace harshly attacked the French company’s choice to stay on in Syria, despite the civil war raging there. It stayed in the country between 2012 and September 2014, when it ceased operations. It was charged with paying commissions to various terrorist groups such as the Al-Nusra Front − affiliated at the time with Al-Qaeda − and IS. “In the midst of a civil war, Lafarge made the unthinkable choice to put money into the hands of ISIS, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organizations, so that it could continue selling cement,” thundered the Brooklyn attorney. He added that the company also sought “the assistance [of the terrorist group] to hurt Lafarge’s competition in exchange for a cut” of its sales.

Between €4.8 and 10 million paid to IS

According to the US courts, Lafarge paid nearly $6 million to IS and the Al-Nusra Front between August 2013 and October 2014 through its Syrian subsidiary, Lafarge Cement Syria. This came in the form of direct payments, orders with suppliers controlled by jihadist groups and variable payments based on the percentage of sales, as well as $1.1 million to third-party intermediaries. These arrangements enabled the Jalabiya plant in northern Syria to generate $70 million in sales revenue. The French justice system’s estimates differ. The French investigation has calculated Lafarge’s payments to IS alone at between €4.8 and €10 million.

The group said it “deeply regrets” these facts and “accepted responsibility for the actions of the individual executives involved,” acknowledging that this behavior was in “flagrant violation” of its code of conduct. However, its parent company, Holcim, stressed that it itself has never operated in Syria and that these actions were carried out without its knowledge, including after the 2015 merger. Holcim was also keen to point out that the executives involved from the French firm had all left the company by 2017.