Lafarge and eight executives found guilty in landmark case that raises questions about what exactly was in that concrete
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
The Most Morally Complex Construction Project in Modern History
PARIS — A French court has convicted cement giant Lafarge and eight of its former executives of financing armed groups in Syria, specifically the Islamic State. The company, which produces the concrete that literally holds Western civilisation together, apparently also contributed financially to the organisation most committed to demolishing it. The irony is structural. Unlike Lafarge’s contribution to Middle Eastern infrastructure, it will not be bombed away.
Lafarge’s legal defense did not, to its credit, go so far as to describe funding a terrorist organisation as a foundation for peace, though the company did spend years arguing that operating in a war zone required paying multiple armed factions — including genocidal ones — to keep a Syrian factory running. The court reviewed this argument, considered it carefully, and found it entirely unconvincing. France, as it turns out, has laws about this sort of thing. Who knew.
The Factory in Question: A Case Study in Catastrophically Bad Judgment
Lafarge’s Syrian cement plant continued operating after the civil war began in 2011, generating revenue under conditions that required what company documents called payments to armed groups. Among those groups was ISIS, which at the time was beheading journalists and establishing a caliphate across large portions of Iraq and Syria. Lafarge’s executives presumably discussed this at board level. The minutes of those meetings would make extraordinary and extremely disturbing reading.
Al Jazeera’s reporting on the verdict confirms that eight former executives were convicted alongside the corporate entity. Lafarge was also ordered to pay substantial fines, which, given that the company has since merged with Swiss group Holcim to become LafargeHolcim, is somewhat like billing someone who has already left the country. The new company is presumably relieved to be known primarily for making concrete rather than funding jihadists.
What This Tells Us About Corporate Ethics, Briefly
The Lafarge case is being called landmark by legal scholars. It is among the first times a major Western corporation has faced criminal conviction for complicity in crimes against humanity arising from decisions made in an active war zone. Business ethics professors are adding it to their curricula. The chapter, one imagines, will be titled: Chapter 14: A Simple List of Organisations You Should Not Fund.
Bohiney Magazine notes that Lafarge’s former brand promise — building better communities — may require quiet revision. The London Prat suggests the updated version might read: Lafarge: We Pour Foundations. Terms and Conditions Apply. Some Exclusions Apply. ISIS Is an Exclusion.
France Reflects on the Decade It Took to Get Here
France’s legal system, which moves at the speed of a thoughtful snail crossing a philosophical cobblestone, has arrived at this verdict approximately a decade after the events in question. In fairness, the case was extraordinarily complex. Also, in France, legal proceedings are understood to be meditative experiences. The verdict stands. The concrete, presumably, is innocent. And somewhere in a boardroom, someone is carefully re-reading their company’s conflict-zone operating procedures and thanking God they manufacture biscuits.
More Gallic absurdism: The Daily Mash | NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
