Through its Syrian subsidiary, Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), the Lafarge Group operated a cement plant in Jalabiya in northern Syria. The site remained in operation even as the country gradually descended into civil war beginning in 2011, until it was seized by the Islamic State in September 2014.
To keep the site operational and allow its Syrian employees to travel on roads blocked by checkpoints manned by rebel groups opposed to Bashar al-Assad, the subsidiary is accused of having made payments, between 2013 and 2014, through its Syrian shareholder Firas Tlass, to various armed groups, including terrorist groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State.
A judicial investigation was opened in Paris. Several former executives and managers of the Lafarge Group were indicted beginning in late 2017 for financing a terrorist organization, endangering the lives of others, and violating financial regulations governing relations with a foreign state; before Lafarge SA itself was indicted in June 2018, notably for complicity in crimes against humanity.
After several years of legal proceedings, the company and several former executives were referred to the Paris Criminal Court on charges of financing a terrorist organization and violating the embargo.
The law firm Soulez Larivière Avocats is representing the former director of the Syrian subsidiary, who held that position until July 2014. The trial took place in Paris from November to December 2025, and the court handed down its ruling on April 13, 2026. An appeal was filed; the case is currently pending before the Paris Court of Appeals.
This case is considered emblematic of the criminal risks now faced by a company and its executives when business operations continue amid armed conflict and state collapse, at the intersection of compliance and geopolitical issues. Highly publicized, it remains unprecedented in France: this is the first time that a charge of financing a terrorist organization has been brought against a major industrial group and its executives for continuing its operations in a country at war.