France's top anti-terror court has delivered a landmark ruling against cement giant Lafarge, finding the company guilty of bankrolling armed groups in Syria to keep a lucrative plant running. Judges in Paris said Lafarge and eight former executives, including ex-CEO Bruno Lafont, paid at least $6.36 million to ISIS and the al-Nusra Front in 2013-2014, in violation of EU sanctions. Lafarge was fined $1.32 million, had $35.4 million in assets seized, and faces an additional penalty over sanctions breaches, reports Al Jazeera. Lafont was sentenced to six years in prison and plans to appeal. "This method of financing terrorist organizations, and primarily (ISIS), was essential in enabling the terrorist organization to gain control of Syria's natural resources, allowing it to finance terrorist acts within the region and those planned abroad, particularly in Europe," judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez said, per the Guardian.
The court described the payments as a "commercial partnership" aimed solely at maintaining operations at the Jalabiya plant, including fees for safe passage and buying raw materials from quarries under ISIS control. The case is the first in France to convict a company of financing terrorism and comes alongside an ongoing French investigation into alleged complicity in crimes against humanity, and a separate US case in which Lafarge admitted in 2022 to paying $6 million to ISIS and al-Nusra, agreeing to $778 million in fines. Lafarge, now part of Holcim, called the conduct a decade-old "legacy matter" and said it is reviewing the ruling.
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