In the French Lafarge case, two recent decisions taken at the highest levels of the judicial system have sent a clear message to multinational corporations: they can face charges for the gravest human rights violations, even if they were committed abroad via a subsidiary.
On 18 October 2022, in a separate US proceeding, Lafarge SA and LCS pleaded guilty before a federal court to conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations and agreed to pay 778 million US dollars in fines and forfeiture– it is the first time in the United States that a company is prosecuted on this charge. In court, Lafarge chair said the former company executives “knowingly and willfully agreed to participate in a conspiracy to make and authorize payments intended for the benefit of various armed groups in Syria.”
While unprecedented, the plea agreement fails to address the more central question of corporate complicity in international crimes and reparations for those affected.
In an article in OpinioJuris, Sandra Cossart, Sherpa’s Executive Director, Anna Kiefer, Advocacy and Litigation Officer at Sherpa, Cannelle Lavite, Co-Director of the Business and Human Rights program at the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) and Claire Tixeire, Senior Legal Advisor at the ECCHR, describe the stakes: never before has a multinational, as a legal person, been formally charged in front of a domestic or international jurisdiction for complicity in crimes against humanity. While top former French directors of Lafarge had already been charged with endangering employees and financing terrorism, by indicting the company itself, French courts appear to be signaling their acknowledgment that the structural underpinnings and decision-making processes within corporations can incentivize criminal action.
