A French judicial inquiry has been launched into the Syrian activities of LafargeHolcim to look into the "financing of terrorist enterprise" and endangering lives.
The prosecutors’ office in Paris said Tuesday that three judges would investigate a Lafarge cement plant that the company kept running as Syria descended into civil war. It was eventually evacuated in September 2014.
In April, LafargeHolcim said its chief executive Eric Olsen would leave the company which admitted it had paid armed groups to keep a factory operating in war-ravaged Syria. An internal inquiry found protection payments made to intermediaries to keep open the Jalabiya plant in northern Syria were not in line with LafargeHolcim's policies.
LafargeHolcim, formed in 2015 as following the $46bn merger between France’s Lafarge and Switzerland’s Holcim, said “unacceptable measures” had been taken to keep the Syria plant running and that “selected members of group management” were aware of possible violations of business conduct standards.
LafargeHolcim published a six-page summary of the internal investigation prepared with law firms Baker McKenzie in Washington and Darrois Villey in Paris. That summary confirmed the Syrian subsidiary had made unspecified payments to intermediaries to avoid disruption by local armed groups that “periodically interfered with employee transportation to and from the plant, restricted access to necessary supplies, and harassed customers”.
Eric Olsen, LafargeHolcim’s chief executive, said he will step down in July to help draw a line under the controversy but said he had not been involved in any wrongdoing. He will be replaced by Jan Jenisch, the boss of Swiss chemicals group Sika.
At the time the Syrian plant was operating, Olsen was a senior manager at Lafarge. LafargeHolcim said its internal investigations concluded that Olsen “was not responsible for, nor thought to be aware of, any wrongdoings”.
