On 13 April 2026, the Paris Criminal Court delivered its long-awaited verdict in the case against the French cement company Lafarge.

The decision marks a significant development at the intersection of corporate governance, business and human rights, and international criminal law. It provides a rare and concrete example of how domestic criminal courts may assess corporate conduct in conflict-affected and high-risk environments, and highlights the limits of traditional compliance-based risk assessment approaches.

The Facts and Procedure

In 2016, following a journalistic investigation, the French NGO Sherpa, the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (“ECCHR”), and eleven former Syrian employees filed a criminal complaint against Lafarge SA (since acquired by the Swiss group Holcim). The complaint alleged that the company had made payments amounting to several million euros to armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (“ISIS”) and the al-Nusra Front (“ANF”), between 2013 and 2014, in order to maintain the operation of a cement plant in Jalabiya, northern Syria.

A criminal investigation was opened in France and assigned to Investigating Judges of the Paris Tribunal, who were tasked with examining allegations of financing terrorism, complicity in crimes against humanity, and related offences. In parallel, in October 2022, Lafarge SA and its Syrian subsidiary entered into a plea agreement with the United States Department of Justice, admitting that they had provided material support and resources to ISIS and ANF (both US-designated foreign terrorist organizations) in exchange for permission to operate. The two companies agreed to pay around $778 million in fines and forfeiture.

Following this plea agreement, and after several years of investigation, the French proceedings were split in 2024. The Paris Investigating Judges referred the company and eight individuals to the Paris Criminal Court on charges of financing terrorism and breaching international sanctions, while they decided to continue their investigation into alleged complicity in crimes against humanity.

The trial began on 4 November 2025 before the 16^thchamber of the Paris Criminal Court (the criminal chamber specialised in terrorism-related offences) and lasted six weeks.

The Verdict

In its judgment of 13 April 2026, the Criminal Court rejected the defence’s argument that Lafarge had been the victim of a “racket” and held that the payments (amounting to approximately €5.6 million) constituted a “commercial partnership with ISIS”. According to the Court, these payments became “essential” in enabling the terrorist organisation to secure control over economic resources and finance its operations, including attacks carried out in Europe.

While reading the decision, Presiding Judge Isabelle Prévost-Desprez stressed the concrete and dramatic impact of decisions made in boardrooms: “as one plaintiff, a victim of the November 13, 2015 attacks, said, the figures and the financial decisions made by those guilty in this case turned into Kalashnikov rifles, into explosives, which killed, maimed, wounded and devastated lives in Syria and in France”.

As a consequence, the corporate entity was found guilty of financing terrorist organisations under Article 421-2-2 of the French Criminal Code  which provides for corporate criminal liability for crimes committed through their representatives, and was sentenced to a €1.125 million criminal fine (the statutory maximum for this offence).

Four former executives, including former CEO Bruno Lafont and former deputy managing director Christian Herrault, as well as four employees and contractors, were convicted of the same offence. They received sentences ranging from 18 months to 7 years’ imprisonment, some with immediate enforcement, and criminal fines of up to €225.000. Bruno Lafont and Christian Herrault were taken into custody at the end of the hearing.

In addition, the company and its former executives were jointly sentenced to pay a €4.5 million customs fine for violations of international sanctions.

Their lawyers have already announced that they would appeal the judgement.

The Lessons

The Lafarge judgment is significant in several respects.

It constitutes the first criminal conviction of a corporation in France for financing terrorism, and one of the rare instances in which corporate executives have been sentenced to custodial sentences for acts committed in their professional capacity, absent any personal enrichment.

The decision further reflects a shift in how French courts may characterise corporate conduct in conflict-affected and high-risk environments. By rejecting the defence argument that the company had been the victim of a “racket” and characterising the payments as a “commercial partnership” with armed groups, the Court moved away from a narrative of constraint and instead emphasised corporate agency in business decision-making. The Presiding Judge underscored that management could have halted the plant’s operations but chose not to, noting that “the situation was never so out of Lafarge’s control as to constitute coercion in the sense understood by case law”. The Court also strongly criticised the former CEO’s line of defence that he had not been informed of the situation, stating that he had been “trying to avoid responsibility by claiming a kind of disinterest or inability to deal with the management issues facing Lafarge, and ultimately a form of incompetence”.

This reasoning serves as a warning to corporate executives facing criminal prosecution for decisions made in the context of overseas operations. It confirms what business and human rights professionals have been stating for years: business continuity is not a legally neutral objective. Decisions taken to preserve operations – even in highly constrained environments – may give rise to criminal liability where they contribute to serious violations of international law or human rights.

Beyond France, the Lafarge case forms part of a broader development of international criminal law, in which proceedings against corporate actors are no longer exceptional. In Sweden, the criminal trial held against the former CEO and Chairman of the Swedish oil company Lundin Oil (now Orrön Energy) for complicity in war crimes committed by Sudan’s regime is coming to an end, with the Prosecution seeking prison sentences of up to ten and six years. In the United States, in October 2025, a New York jury found the French bank BNP Paribas liable for damages for enabling mass atrocities in Sudan. Meanwhile, the Paris Investigating Judges continue their investigation into Lafarge’s alleged complicity in crimes against humanity and will ultimately have to decide whether to commit the company and its former executives or employees to trial before the Paris Criminal Court on this ground. A second Lafarge trial may therefore be expected in the coming years..

These developments point to the emergence of a new legal landscape, at the crossroads of international criminal law, white-collar crime, and corporate governance. Prosecutors and courts are developing specialised expertise and increasingly cooperating across jurisdictions; civil society organisations have taken a central role in initiating and supporting “strategic litigation” in various forums; and legal concepts traditionally associated with international criminal tribunals are progressively entering domestic corporate crime litigation.

For corporate actors, the implications are significant. The Lafarge case illustrates the limits of traditional risk-balancing approaches and underscores that operating in conflict-affected and high-risk environments entails not only reputational or regulatory risks, but also direct exposure to criminal liability – for both companies and their executives.

As appeals proceed and investigations into complicity in crimes against humanity continue, the case is far from over. Yet the message is already clear: maintaining operations “at all costs” is no longer a sustainable business strategy where it results in direct or indirect engagement with actors responsible for serious violations of international law and human rights.

In this evolving landscape, anticipating and mitigating risks is no longer a matter of compliance; it has become a core issue of corporate criminal exposure.