A Paris court on April 13 handed prison terms of 3-6 years to former top executives of French building materials manufacturer Lafarge over payments made during the Syrian civil war in 2014 to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and the al-Nusrah Front (ANF) to keep the company’s cement plant open and profitable in Syria.
As the priorities of the US Department of Justice have shifted during the current administration, executives in the United States could face similarly significant criminal penalties for payments made to cartels or bribery of foreign officials.
Background
In 2022, French building materials manufacturer Lafarge pleaded guilty in the United States to a one-count criminal information charging conspiracy to provide material support and resources in Northern Syria from 2013 to 2014 to ISIS and ANF. The scheme involved payments through Lafarge’s Syrian subsidiary to ISIS and ANF in exchange for permission to operate a cement plant in Syria, which enabled the subsidiary to obtain approximately $70.3 million in revenue. While the allegations involved transactions in foreign countries by foreign companies, the DOJ was able to hold Lafarge criminally liable for conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, because the statute is not confined to US entities or activities on US soil. Lafarge agreed to pay $778 million in fines and forfeiture. The DOJ did not pursue charges against individuals for their roles in the crimes, leaving French prosecutors to pursue the responsible Lafarge executives.
French prosecutors charged Lafarge and four former executives with several offenses, including complicity in crimes against humanity, financing a terrorist enterprise, endangering the lives of others and violating international sanctions. Unlike in the United States, Lafarge did not plead guilty, and the charges proceeded to trial. While the charges for complicity in crimes against humanity remain in the pre-trial stage, the other charges against Lafarge and its former executives proceeded to a six-week trial in late 2025. On April 13, 2026, the Paris Criminal Court convicted Lafarge and the four individuals of making illicit payments to terrorist groups and breaching European Union sanctions. Lafarge received the maximum penalty of €1.1 million. Bruno Lafont, the former CEO, was sentenced to six years in prison and fined €225,000; Christian Herrault, a former regional manager for Lafarge, and Bruno Pescheux, a former director of the Syrian factory, were each sentenced to five years and fined €225,000; and Frédéric Jolibois, who succeeded Pescheaux as director of the Syrian factory, was sentenced to three years and fined €80,000.
The DOJ’s New Priorities and Impact
While the DOJ chose, at the time, not to pursue charges against the individuals involved in the Lafarge scheme, the Department’s priorities have since shifted to focus on individual conduct. In a June 9, 2025 DOJ Memorandum, for example, the Deputy Attorney General instructed prosecutors bringing charges under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to “focus on cases in which individuals have engaged in criminal misconduct and not attribute nonspecific malfeasance to corporate structures.” Bracewell discussed the DOJ Memorandum in a June 23, 2025 client alert. We expect future investigations into foreign misconduct, including those similar to the Lafarge investigation, to focus on individual misconduct, rather than solely on the violations committed by a corporate entity.
Lafarge was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS and ANF, because those organizations are US-designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). Since last year, the US State Department has expanded the list of FTOS to include several cartels. See Executive Order 14157, Designating Cartels and Other Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists and Bracewell’s February 26, 2025 client alert on these designations. The DOJ is now prioritizing investigations into companies and individuals that provide material support or resources to these newly designated foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) or bribe foreign government officials to facilitate the criminal operations of cartels and TCOs under the FCPA.
What Organizations Should Do Now
With this increased scrutiny and heightened threat for individual prosecution, it is now even more important for companies to ensure internal controls and compliance policies prevent and detect wrongdoing that could become the target under the DOJ’s current enforcement priorities. As Bracewell previously reported in a May 15, 2025 client alert, the DOJ has revised the Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy (CEP) to now offer clearer benefits — such as potential declinations and fine reductions — for companies that demonstrate transparency, cooperation and a genuine commitment to remediation incentives for self-reporting.
