How Not to Conduct Business in Wartime

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/how-not-to-conduct-business-in-wartime.html

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Syria’s descent into civil war in 2011 and the rise of terrorist groups drove most foreign companies out of the country. But one French company, Lafarge S.A., stayed until 2014, when the Islamic State seized its cement plant near the Turkish border. Lafarge now admits that it paid “third parties,” who in turn paid terrorist groups in an attempt to keep the plant running.

These revelations recall the immorality of foreign companies — including Lafarge — that prospered by working with the Nazis during World War II. Lafarge now faces a criminal inquiry by the French economy ministry and a lawsuit in France by human rights groups and former employees charging it with war crimes and crimes against humanity for paying the Islamic State for security, safe passage for employees and raw materials.

The company’s chief executive, Eric Olsen, announced his resignation on Monday, saying he wanted to bring “serenity to a company that has been exposed for months on this case.” While Mr. Olsen maintains he knew nothing about what was going on in Syria, the French newspaper Le Monde reported when it broke the story last June that emails it obtained indicated senior management in Paris was aware of what was happening. The company blames “the combination of the war zone chaos” and local management’s “can do” spirit for any wrongdoing. This is a sorry excuse for funding terrorism.

LafargeHolcim, as it was renamed after a 2016 merger, said last month that it intends to bid for potentially lucrative work on President Trump’s promised wall along the Mexican border. In France, where the wall is dimly viewed, that has reinforced an image of a company willing to do anything for a profit. Citing the Syria payments and the wall, the Paris City Council voted to end the company’s role in providing sand for the summer “beach” along the Seine, and President François Hollande warned: “There are markets where one should be prudent.”

President Trump or anyone else considering doing business with the company should bear in mind the words of Jeffrey Taylor, a United States attorney in 2007 when Chiquita Brands International pleaded guilty to making payments to a terrorist organization in Colombia. “Funding a terrorist organization,” he said, “can never be treated as a cost of doing business.”