Swiss subsidiary cleared on employee safety, faces crimes against humanity charge

"The company remains under investigation for complicity in crimes against humanity and financing a terrorist undertaking", the Court of Cassation said of French cement manufacturer Lafarge, a subsidiary of Holcim in canton Zug. Keystone / Gaetan Bally

The French Court of Cassation has quashed the indictment against French cement manufacturer Lafarge, a subsidiary of Zug-based multinational, Holcim, for endangering its Syrian employees. However, the indictment for complicity in crimes against humanity remains in place.

“As French law is not applicable, the Court of Cassation has quashed the company’s indictment,” according to a statement from the highest court in France, sent to AWP finance news agency.

“The company remains under investigation for complicity in crimes against humanity and financing a terrorist undertaking”, the Court of Cassation added.

The court had to rule on Lafarge’s indictments for complicity in crimes against humanity and endangering the lives of its employees in Syria, which were upheld by the Paris Court of Appeal in 2022 and which the company is contesting.

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The group is suspected of having paid several million euros in 2013 and 2014, via its Syrian subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria, to jihadist groups, including the Islamic State organisation, and to intermediaries, in order to maintain the operation of a cement plant in Jalabiya, even as the country was sinking into war.

Syrian law applicable

The text of Tuesday’s decision recalls that “between 2012 and 2015, the territory on which the cement plant is located was subject to fighting and occupation by various armed groups, including the so-called Islamic State organisation” and that “during this period, the company’s Syrian employees continued their work, enabling the plant to operate, while the foreign management was evacuated to Egypt in 2012, from where it continued to organise the plant’s activity”.

They were then “exposed to various risks, including extortion and kidnapping by armed groups, including the Islamic State”. The cement plant was finally evacuated as a matter of urgency in 2014, shortly before it was seized by the Islamic State.

However, the Court of Cassation ruled that “the offence of endangering the life of others is only constituted in the case of violation of an obligation imposed by a French law or regulation”, and that “Syrian law was applicable to the employment relationship between the French company and the Syrian employees, since they were working in Syria”.

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The annulment of the indictment automatically gives the French company the status of “assisted witness”. “As such, it could not be brought before a court for these facts”, the court stated.

Contacted by AWP, a Lafarge spokesperson simply explained that “this is a question inherited from the past, which Lafarge S.A. is in the process of resolving in the context of the legal proceedings in France”

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