Displaying items by tag: Lafarge

France: The Lafarge group and several former senior officials will stand trial in Paris from 4 November 2025, accused of historically financing terrorist organisations, including Islamic State (IS). The aim of the alleged payments was to maintain operations at a cement plant in Jalabiya, northern Syria. The defendants include former CEO Bruno Lafont, five former managers and two Syrian intermediaries. They face charges of financing a terrorist enterprise and, for some, breaching international financial sanctions.

Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), the group’s Syrian subsidiary, is suspected of paying several million Euros between 2013 and 2014 to jihadi groups IS and Jabhat al-Nusra to secure raw materials and allow the movement of employees and goods. The €680m Jalabiya plant, completed in 2010, continued operating until IS took control in September 2014, two years after most other multinationals had left Syria.

An internal investigation in 2017 found ‘violations of Lafarge’s business code of conduct.’ Lafarge, which merged with Holcim in 2015, has said the events predated the merger.  In October 2022, Lafarge pleaded guilty in the US to paying IS and Jabhat al-Nusra nearly US$6m and agreed to pay a US$778m penalty.

Former CEO Lafont has denied knowledge of the payments. His lawyers argue that the US plea “is a blatant attack on the presumption of innocence” and aimed to “preserve the economic interests of a large group.”

So far, 241 civil parties have joined the case. “More than ten years after the events, the former Syrian employees will finally be able to testify about what they endured: the checkpoint crossings, the kidnappings and the constant threat hanging over their lives,” said Sherpa legal officer Anna Kiefer. Lafarge faces a fine of up to €1.125m for financing terrorism, while penalties for violating the embargo could reach ten times the value of the offence. A separate investigation into alleged complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria and Iraq remains ongoing.

US: Sublime Systems has appointed Rob Davies as its CEO. He succeeds Leah Ellis in the post. Ellis, who co-founded the company in 2020 says she will remain “actively engaged.”

Davies joined Sublime Systems in 2024 as an advisor and became its Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the start of 2025. He previously held the position of COO of 6K from 2022 to 2024. He worked for Cabot Corporation in a variety of roles from 2012 to 2022, eventually becoming its VP Global Manufacturing - Reinforcement Materials. Earlier in his career he was the president of Geocycle in the US from 2006 to 2010. He was the plant manager of cement plant in Portland, Colorado for Holcim from 2003 to 2006. Before this, he worked for Lafarge in the UK and Blue Circle in a number of positions including UK Technical Director and UK Operations Officer, and he managed a number of cement plants. Davies holds a master’s degree in mineral process engineering and a master of business administration (MBA) from the University of Warwick.

Switzerland: Holcim Trading & Shipping has appointed Dost Wardak as its CEO. He succeeds Céline Coimbra in the role.

Wardak started working for Holcim Trading & Shipping in 2021 as Head of Region EMEA. Prior to this he worked for LafargeHolcim’s trading subsidiary as a trading manager from 2015. He also worked as a Business Intelligence Manager for Cementia Trading in the early 2010s. Earlier in his career held analyst positions with Lafarge.

France: Lafarge France, part of Holcim, will deploy the technology of the Swiss start-up Neustark on its Gennevilliers site. This means that around 1000t/yr of CO2 could be sequestered into recycled concrete.

Neustark’s principle consists of injecting the liquefied CO2 into recycled gravel. The gas then reacts with the calcium present and forms calcium carbonate crystals. It is thus transformed and can be stored indefinitely. Neustark has already deployed its technology at 22 sites in Europe, mainly in Switzerland and Germany.

The Gennevilliers plant already receives demolition concrete and transforms it into recycled aggregates used in ready-mix concrete gravel and road sub-bases. The site, which produces 80,000t/yr of recycled materials, will be able to transform around 1000t/yr of CO2, as Neustark's technology can store 10kg of CO2 per tonne of recycled demolished concrete.

Serbia: Lafarge Serbia is set to build a new cement plant in Ratari near Obrenovac, which will utilise 1Mt/yr of ash from the nearby Nikola Tesla B power plant as a raw material in cement production, reports Balkan Green Energy News. This €110m investment marks Serbia's first cement plant built next to a power plant to harness ash directly from the source and address the country’s problem of ash accumulation in dumps.

CEO of Lafarge Serbia Dimitrije Knjeginjić said "Fly ash cannot be used in the cement or concrete industry, or many other industries, without prior processing. This is exactly what the Ratari plant will be dealing with. We will grind, classify and select 1Mt/yr of ash to produce new construction materials."

Serbia: Lafarge Serbia will open a new €110m plant in Obrenovac to produce cement from thermal power plant ash, with the aim to address Serbia's waste management problem, according to a government announcement on 5 August 2024. A 2019 report by the European Environmental Agency found that Serbia has around 100 municipal landfills and over 3000 illegal dumpsites.

Lafarge Serbia executive Dimitrije Knjeginjic said "This production will benefit Serbia and its economy, and it is absolutely acceptable from an environmental point of view because it solves the problem of ash landfills."

Canada: Holcim North America has introduced ECOAsh, a Type F fly ash reclaimed from landfills, within its Lafarge Western Canada operations. This innovation is part of Holcim's commitment to sustainable building materials and represents a significant stride in decarbonising the construction industry. As the shift away from coal-fired power plants continues, addressing challenges related to sourcing reliable fly ash supplies prompts the exploration of harvesting and beneficiating legacy landfilled ash as a viable replacement.

Toufic Tabbara, Regional Head of Holcim North America, said "As we continue to build to support growing population demands, the integration of circular building materials such as ECOAsh plays a crucial role in driving our portfolio towards a more sustainable future.”

Brad Kohl, President and CEO of Lafarge Western Canada, added "The transformation of landfill materials into high-value fly ash for sustainable building presents an exciting opportunity for our customers and us to build more with less and work towards a net-zero future.”

Holcim and Geocycle's new processing facility in Alberta will produce high-quality, specification-grade fly ash. The ECOAsh processing facility, commissioned in February 2024, will commence the production and distribution of products throughout Western Canada in the first quarter of 2024.

This year will mark the 10th anniversary of the Yazidi genocide in Sinjar, Iraq. Beginning on the night of 2 - 3 August 2014, ISIS displaced the entire Yazidi population from its homeland, amid a campaign of abductions and killings that claimed 12,000 victims.¹ A striking detail of this and other crimes of the self-proclaimed caliphate is the proximity of a Western corporate actor: cement producer Lafarge, whose subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria operated the Jalabiyeh cement plant in neighbouring northern Syria. On-going investigations have since helped uncover what may amount to complicity on the part of Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria in the form of payments dating back to August 2013.²

In a week that began with the abandoned Jalabiyeh cement plant ablaze following a drone strike,³ Lafarge learned that it will face trial in France over its alleged complicity in crimes against humanity committed by ISIS.⁴ On 16 January 2024, the French Court of Cassation upheld Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syrias' indictments on the charge. Also reportedly indicted are (all former) Lafarge CEOs Bruno Lafont and Eric Olsen, vice president Christian Herrault and security director Jean-Claude Veillard and Lafarge Cement Syria CEOs Bruno Pescheux and Frédéric Jolibois, along with an intermediary and a Jordan-based risk management consultant.^{5, 6} The collaboration in question includes monthly payments to ISIS and other armed groups worth US$15.5m, a lower French court found in May 2022. It may be more than another 20 months before the thorny mass of issues to be considered by the court resolves itself in convictions, or cleared names.

Another front in Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria's legal battle over what happened in Syria is the US civil court system. Activist and survivor Nadia Murad and 426 other Yazidis have filed an Anti-Terrorism Act claim for damages, based on the companies' previous guilty plea to the US Department of Justice to conspiracy to the tune of US$5.92m in October 2022. Murad and fellow claimants allege ‘far higher’ total payments, pointing to correspondence between Lafarge Cement Syria and its intermediary that references ‘[sic] ten millions that we pay directly to them, i.e. to ISIS.’ The DoJ estimates the total value of the conspiracy for all parties at US$80.5m.

On 6 August 2014 (the fourth day of the Yazidi genocide), Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria signalled their agreement to enter into a new long-term agreement to share their revenues with ISIS. On 15 August 2014, the UN Security Council issued Resolution 2170 condemning 'any engagement in direct or indirect trade' with the organisation.⁷ Lafarge and Lafarge Cement Syria allegedly concluded the revenue-sharing agreement, under new terms more beneficial to ISIS, on that same day.

Lafarge Cement Syria finally evacuated the Jalabiyeh cement plant in September 2014, whereupon ISIS added it to its own five-plant international cement network, with sales worth US$583m/yr. The US-led Coalition bombed the site in October 2019 and it was subsequently occupied by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) forces. The strike on 14 January 2024 was part of a drone campaign by Turkish forces against Kurdish positions that the invaders say destroyed 23 targets.

It is conceivable that Turkish armed forces also had personal reasons for destroying this monument to Lafarge’s former presence in the region: on Lafarge’s stipulation, ISIS implemented a duty on Turkish cement entering its area of control, ostensibly charged at US$150/truck. As anyone familiar with the Turkish cement sector knows, one of the major investors in the industry happens to be the country’s military pension fund.

For the 400,000 Yazidis who have survived, the tragedy that began in August 2014 will not end soon. More than half remain in refugee camps. Among the missing are 2000 girls and women who the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism suspect ISIS may have 'further entrenched in human trafficking,' constituing a continuation of the genocide that has outlasted both the self-proclaimed caliphate and the French multinational that may have helped to bankroll it.⁸ Courts in different countries are helping bring to light a reign of terror that spanned international borders. In the US, some of its victims may find redress, while in France, justice may be closing in on anyone who might prove to have made common cause with the perpetrators.

References

1. RASHID, 'DESTROYING THE SOUL OF THE YAZIDIS,' Augut 2019, https://www.rashid-international.org/downloads/RASHID_Yazidi_Heritage_Destruction_Report_2019.pdf

2. Jenner & Block, 'IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK,' 14 December 2013, www.jenner.com/a/web/fy85Wd97fANx7fwBecn31r/23-9186-as-filed-complaint2.pdf

3. ANHA, 'Turkish occupation army targets former Lafarge site,' 14 January 2024, https://hawarnews.com/en/turkish-occupation-army-targets-former-lafarge-site?__cf_chl_tk=mSB3Ph6iU.3FEJ.Z3ywRvcu2n.tOahhpLnd.Fmqk0SU-1705415232-0-gaNycGzNDHs

4. Reuters, 'Lafarge can be charged with 'complicity in crimes against humanity' over Syria plant, French court says,' 16 January 2024, https://ca.news.yahoo.com/lafarge-charged-complicity-crimes-against-132904436.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANqF5SKpSZ7KB5rT5rjo_vFZ5LGdZ9bVkC5SeNw3iZGneLy5Tir2dsb1O3GQjITBRSF_xEs2GDBcSU94nKOocm-npnTznmbfhKB_FgOsBCg-9lO7ilPP2phHAcGahghG9yjmFoWVd24uU7xEwZ2RZqmmMaE2bSIIcTGRuh4LAlXD

5. Madeline Young, Lafarge's Case Cemented, 2021, https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=eilr-recent-developments

6. Le Télégramme, 'Complicité de crimes contre l’humanité : les poursuites contre Lafarge validées par la Cour de cassation?' 16 January 2023, www.letelegramme.fr/france/complicite-de-crimes-contre-lhumanite-les-poursuites-contre-lafarge-validees-par-la-cour-de-cassation-6505590.php

7. UN Security Council, 'Security Council Adopts Resolution 2170 (2014) Condemning Gross, Widespread Abuse of Human Rights by Extremist Groups in Iraq, Syria,' 15 August 2014, https://press.un.org/en/2014/sc11520.doc.htm#:~:text=Through%20the%20unanimous%20adoption%20of,as%20ISIS)%20and%20Al%2DNusra

8. Al-Dayel et al, ‘ISIS and Their Use of Slavery,’ 27 January 2020, https://www.icct.nl/publication/isis-and-their-use-slavery

France/Middle East: The Court of Cassation, France’s highest court, has upheld Lafarge’s indictment on charges of complicity in crimes against humanity, Reuters has reported. A lower court previously concluded that the company had paid US$15.5m to armed groups in the Middle East, including ISIS, via its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria. In its latest ruling, the Court of Cassation quashed another charge of endangering the lives of employees, on grounds that Lafarge’s foreign labour relations are not subject to French law. The group had reportedly not appealed a further charge of financing a terrorist enterprise.

Read the latest on Lafarge’s on-going trials in this week’s Global Cement analysis.

India: Toshali Cement has appointed Dhiren Nayak as its Vice President – Works.

Prior to this, Nayak worked as the plant head of an unspecified cement plant in Odisha in 2023, having earlier worked as a cement sector consultant. He notably held the position of Head of Operations at the Saudi Cement Company in Saudi Arabia from 2013 to 2019 and was a Technical Works Manager at Fujairah Cement Industries in the UAE from 2010. Earlier in his career he worked for FLSmidth, Lafarge Cement, Tata Steel and OCL India.

Toshali Cement operates an integrated plant at Ampavalli in Odisha and a grinding plant at Bayyavaram in Andhra Pradesh.