Showing posts sorted by relevance for query syria. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query syria. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, 8 September 2021

Holcim faces fresh criminal charges for financing terrorism

Aggregate Industries’ parent company Holcim is in the news again for all the wrong reasons.

It’s over the company’s involvement in Syria – a subject we have posted about before. 

France’s top court has rejected the cement giant’s bid to dismiss charges of "complicity in crimes against humanity" for financing terrorism in Syria, overturning a previous ruling. 

The company has been accused of paying millions of euros to Daesh/ISIS to keep its Lafarge operation in Syria running. It is also accused of supplying cement to the terrorist group which "is known to have constructed fortified shelters and tunnel networks against the Coalition powers led by the US." 

In its ruling, the Court of Cassation said: 
In this case, the knowing payment of several million dollars to an organization whose purpose is exclusively criminal is sufficient to characterize the complicity, regardless of whether the concerned party is acting in pursuit of a commercial activity. 
 

Earlier this year, the company changed its name from LafargeHolcim to Holcim in an effort no doubt to distance itself from controversy over Syria – as well as over Myanmar, human rights and pollution.

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Sunday, 23 April 2017

‘LafargeHolcim CEO set to step down over Syria controversy’

LafargeHolcim’s chief executive is set to step down on Monday following an internal investigation into a plant the Swiss-French cement company operated in Syria until September 2014.
His expected exit, which was first reported by France’s Le Figaro, would be another blow for the cement company. Last year its chairman stepped down and the group is under pressure to deliver an ambitious integration programme in weak global markets following the 2015 merger.
Human rights groups in France have filed a lawsuit and have alleged that the company had “business relations” with militant group Isis and may have taken part in financing the group.
LafargeHolcim is the parent company of Aggregate Industries; its dealings in Syria have already been covered on this blog: Welcome to LafargeHolcim, This is the company that is looking to profit from Straitgate Farm and LafargeHolcim ‘in the cross-hairs of French presidential candidates’.

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Monday, 21 October 2019

Coalition forces torch Lafarge cement plant in Syria

We have previously posted about LafargeHolcim’s involvement in Syria. Executives from the parent company of Aggregate Industries have been accused of financing terrorism. Later this month, the Court of Appeal in Paris will decide whether these charges will be upheld.




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Monday, 11 December 2017

LafargeHolcim’s former boss charged



It’s not just at a local level - where planning applications contain a catalogue of fiction - the question of integrity at LafargeHolcim, the company that owns Aggregate Industries, appears to go right to the top.

We posted again about LafargeHolcim and its involvement in Syria only last month, but matters have already moved on.

Earlier in the year, when it was announced that "LafargeHolcim CEO set to step down over Syria controversy", the FT reported Eric Olsen as saying:
French prosecutors would appear to have a different idea, and rather than bringing back serenity, Bloomberg reported last week "Former LafargeHolcim CEO Charged With Syria Terrorism Funding". According to the FT:
You might expect criminals in the sand trade, according to this article in the Independent:
as sand becomes big business, the sand trade has attracted criminals
You don’t expect them at the top of the world’s largest building materials manufacturer.

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Saturday, 29 July 2023

US families sue Aggregate Industries’ parent company over payments to IS

Last year, Aggregate Industries’ parent company, Holcim, agreed to pay $778 million after its Lafarge subsidiary pleaded guilty to US charges of supporting Islamic State, becoming the first company in American history to be convicted of bribing a foreign terrorist organisation. 

Previous posts covering the company’s involvement in Syria can be found here.  

As we posted earlier this year: 
Holcim – previously LafargeHolcim, the parent company of Aggregate Industries, which was formed after a "merger of equals" in 2015 between Swiss-based Holcim and French-based Lafarge – will be the ultimate beneficiary of the quarry at Straitgate Farm.   

The company changed its name in 2021, no doubt because of a number of controversies. One controversy – Lafarge’s previous support for terrorists in Syria – refuses to go away. 
This week, Reuters announced: 
Relations of a U.S. aid worker and American soldiers - all killed or injured by Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front - have lodged a legal claim against cement maker Lafarge over payments the French company made to extremist groups.
Court documents state: 
Defendants' payments aided the terrorist attacks that targeted plaintiffs and their family members...

Lafarge's support for ISIS and ANF ran deep. It operated a lucrative cement plant in northern Syria, and it decided that bribing Syrian terrorists offered the best way to protect its profits from the plant.
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Monday, 12 March 2018

LafargeHolcim continues to suffer backlash over behaviour in Syria

Lafarge’s involvement in Syria has been the subject of a number of previous posts.

The New York Times has published an extended article about the company that now owns Aggregate Industries and Straitgate Farm; about how six months after the Lafarge Holcim tie up was announced, Lafarge workers in Syria were left to fend for themselves with the approach of ISIS:
“What I want to know,” Mr. Mohamad said of Lafarge in an interview, “is why did they leave us there to face our deaths?”
“The factory was the only thing they cared about,” Mr. Mohamad said. “But Lafarge should be a lesson for Western companies in foreign countries: They should treat people working for them like human beings.”
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Monday, 23 April 2018

The terrible human cost of LafargeHolcim’s operations

Five years ago we posted about Holcim and human rights. Since then Holcim has merged with Lafarge. LafargeHolcim is the world's largest cement producer. It is the parent company of Aggregate Industries, and the ultimate beneficiary of any quarrying at Straitgate Farm. Its operations impact lives - both outside the company and within it.

It is widely accepted that the cement industry is one of the world's most polluting - producing 5-8% of global greenhouse gas emissions; it is widely accepted that:
climate change is one of the greatest threats to human rights of our generation, posing a serious risk to the fundamental rights to life, health, food and an adequate standard of living of individuals and communities across the world.
If it were a country, LafargeHolcim would rank 42nd in terms of CO2 emissions; ahead of the Czech Republic and Belgium; nearly 3 times the emissions of Switzerland - the country where it is based. According to Mark Kenber, former CEO of Climate Group:
But the pollution from cement manufacture, and LafargeHolcim’s record on CO2 emissions, is well known. Less well known is the number of people who lose their life whilst working for the company.

LafargeHolcim makes a lot of claims about Health and Safety; how "Health & Safety is embedded in LafargeHolcim’s operations"; how "At LafargeHolcim, we believe that "if we’re good in safety, then we’re good in business""; how "Health & Safety is our overarching value":


But what is LafargeHolcim’s record on Health and Safety?

LafargeHolcim’s involvement in Syria has been the subject of a number of posts. Executives stand accused of financing terrorism and sacrificing the safety of workers. A number have been charged, including the company’s previous CEO. Another executive was charged recently with 'endangering lives'.



But it’s not just in Syria where lives have been endangered and lost. A staggering 201 people have lost their lives whilst working for LafargeHolcim over the past 3 years - 50 in 2015, 86 in 2016 and 65 in 2017- including direct employees, contractors and subcontractors.

Unions claim LafargeHolcim has "the worst health and safety performance in the industry". They had demanded action and a Global Framework Agreement. However, earlier this year:
We are outraged that LafargeHolcim has broken its word and refuses to meet its commitment to sign a GFA. A GFA would help to build positive industrial relations throughout the company and address some of the company’s most serious problems, including an excessive reliance on precarious work and the high number of workers killed at your operations every year.
If an airline had lost 201 lives in a plane crash it would be all over the news. Why isn’t this?

IndustriALL Global Union
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Wednesday, 17 January 2024

AI’s parent can be charged with ‘complicity in crimes against humanity’

Aggregate Industries' parent company Holcim – previously known as LafargeHolcim, a conglomerate formed by the merger of Swiss-based Holcim and French-based Lafarge – is accused of financing terrorism in Syria, as we have previously posted. 

The company had argued that French authorities had no formal jurisdiction for prosecuting charges of war crime involvement abroad, an argument that was this week rejected:
PARIS, Jan 16 (Reuters) - France's highest court on Tuesday rejected a request from French cement maker Lafarge that it dismiss charges of complicity in crimes against humanity as part of an enquiry into how the group kept its factory running in Syria after war broke out in 2011. The procedural ruling, which upheld an earlier decision by a lower court, is not a verdict on guilt. But it means a multi-year investigation into the company's criminal liability on the grounds of alleged, highly symbolic crimes against humanity charges can continue.
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Tuesday, 18 October 2022

Lafarge pleads guilty to US charges of supporting Islamic State

Accusations that Aggregate Industries’ parent company financed terrorism in Syria date back to 2016 – as we have previously posted.

Today, Reuters reports: 
NEW YORK, Oct 18 (Reuters) - French cement maker Lafarge pleaded guilty on Tuesday to U.S. charges of supporting the Islamic State by keeping a factory running in Syria after conflict broke out in 2011, according to a court hearing. 

The admission in Brooklyn federal court marked the first time a company has pleaded guilty in the United States to charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization. Lafarge, which became part of Swiss-listed Holcim in 2015, is also facing charges of complicity in crimes against humanity in Paris. 

Lafarge agreed to forfeit $687 million and pay a fine of $90 million in its guilty plea.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said: 
In the midst of a civil war, Lafarge made the unthinkable choice to put money into the hands of ISIS, one of the world’s most barbaric terrorist organizations, so that it could continue selling cement. Lafarge did this not merely in exchange for permission to operate its cement plant – which would have been bad enough – but also to leverage its relationship with ISIS for economic advantage, seeking ISIS’s assistance to hurt Lafarge’s competition in exchange for a cut of Lafarge’s sales. Today, Lafarge has admitted and taken responsibility for its staggering crime. Never before has a corporation been charged with providing material support and resources to foreign terrorist organizations. This unprecedented charge and resolution reflect the extraordinary crimes committed and demonstrates that corporations that take actions in contravention of our national security interests in violation of the law will be held to account.
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Monday, 27 November 2017

LafargeHolcim’s involvement in Syria

We’ve posted on this issue before; LafargeHolcim is the parent company of Aggregate Industries.

Earlier this month police raided the Paris office of LafargeHolcim in relation to the affair. Now there are reports that "the company paid a total of US$5.6m to a number of local factions in Syria, including to the Islamic State group". As the Newsweek article concludes:
Lafarge's alleged support for militants in Syria wouldn't be the first time the group, one of the largest construction companies in the world, has found itself involved in controversial projects, according to France 24. The company reportedly participated in the construction of a massive coastal wall of bunkers known as the "Atlantic Wall" for the Nazis in 1942, a collaboration that gave Lafarge a distinct advantage over its peers for decades to come.
This is the company - the same one that offered to build Trump's Wall on the Mexico border - that would ultimately benefit from any quarrying activities at Straitgate Farm.
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Thursday, 4 June 2020

LafargeHolcim ‘performs top in construction materials sector for ESG risk rating’

LafargeHolcim – the world's largest cement producer, and parent company to Aggregate Industries – wants to keep "raising the bar":


The bar to sustainable construction is obviously still quite high for LafargeHolcim, given that the company's carbon emissions amounted to some 148,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2019 alone – more than many countries, and, as opposed to further accelerating, still 2% higher than its like-for-like emissions two years earlier.

Despite this cost to our environment and our society, LafargeHolcim is proud; proud that it performs top in a list of industry peers for risks linked to ESG – environmental, social and governance – factors. LafargeHolcim's Chief Sustainability Officer says:
We are very proud of this industry-leading ESG ranking. It positions LafargeHolcim as the number one construction materials company within Sustainalytics’ ESG Risk Rating, as well as the very first to rank below 20 in its “low risk” category. We are proud of the results of this assessment and are encouraged to keep on raising the bar to further accelerate the transition to sustainable construction.
If LafargeHolcim – with its country-beating carbon footprint – tops ESG risk rankings, "leading the way in sustainable construction", what does it say about the rest of the industry?

Investors are becoming increasingly concerned about sustainability issues. ESG ratings can be a signal of earnings risk. The company cites analysis performed by Sustainalytics:
Modern investors in public and private markets are demanding ESG data, research, ratings, and solutions in order to make informed, meaningful investing decisions. From climate change to supply-chain practices, the nature of the investment process is evolving and shining a spotlight on demand for stakeholder capitalism. Whether assessing the durability of a company's economic moat or the stability of its credit rating, this is the future of long-term investing.
LafargeHolcim claims:
The Sustainalytics report states that the company is at low risk of experiencing material financial impacts from ESG factors due to its strong management of material ESG issues. The company is especially recognized for its strong corporate governance performance and its improvement across all seven of the material ESG issues and corporate governance factors that were analyzed. According to the report, LafargeHolcim’s strongest areas of ESG risk management are its global business ethics programs, its broad range of sustainable products & services and its responsible use of resources, notably in terms of water management.
Which sounds great, but LafargeHolcim ignores the line from Sustainalytics' overview that recognises:
the company has a moderate level of controversies...
Despite the limited amount of publicly-available information at the time, LafargeHolcim has been on Sustainalytics’ radar for several years through our country involvement research. As part of our newly-developed Human Rights Risk Monitor, we now track company involvement in 14 countries and regions where there is a particularly high risk of companies being complicit in human rights violations. This includes conflict areas, such as Syria, but also disputed territories and authoritarian states where human rights abuses are rife.
LafargeHolcim would point to progress in this area:

I hope that by giving my personal commitment to this Call to Action we can highlight the importance of this topic for LafargeHolcim. We have always strived to be a valued member of the communities where we live and work and a model corporate citizen on a global level. Standing up as a promoter of human rights shall further advance these goals
Some would argue with always, given that not long ago the company was embroiled in this controversy:



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Friday, 20 September 2024

Aggregate Industries’ parent: the cement company that paid millions to ISIS

As far back as 2016, we have been writing about how Aggregate Industries' parent company Holcim – previously known as LafargeHolcim, a conglomerate formed by the merger of Swiss-based Holcim and French-based Lafarge – was accused of financing terrorism in Syria. 

The case is now tied up in the French courts, as we posted earlier this year. 

This week, The Guardian published this story:
 
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Monday, 13 March 2017

This is the company that is looking to profit from Straitgate Farm

Last week, the French Government warned LafargeHolcim over its offer to help build Trump’s wall:
"It should reflect upon what its interests are. There are other clients who will be stunned by this," French Foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told France Info radio on Thursday, a few days after LafargeHolcim’s chief executive Eric Olsen said he was prepared to supply the materials for it.
"Lafarge says it doesn’t do politics. ... Very well, but I would say companies ... also have social and environmental responsibilities," added France’s top diplomat.



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Monday, 8 March 2021

LafargeHolcim “is a systematic polluter” says Greenpeace Switzerland

Since 2013, we have posted how the company that would ultimately profit from any quarrying at Straitgate Farm would be the same company accused of pollution and human rights violations, devastating livelihoods of local communities; just click on pollution or human rights labels or posts like:
Last year, research by Greenpeace Switzerland found that LafargeHolcim – the parent company of Aggregate Industries – "is responsible or is expected to take responsibility for at least 122 cases of environmental pollution and human rights violations in 34 different countries."
 

Greenpeace’s report is in German, but here’s a Google Translation of one page: 
Number of cases (122) countries (34) Scandals / subject areas
2 Egypt Regulatory Violations
1 Algeria Violation of labor and trade union rights
2 Argentina air pollution
1 Bangladesh Regulatory Violations
1 Benin air pollution
2 Brazil Air pollution, hazardous waste incineration, exceeding emission limits, health hazards, tax evasion, price fixing
43 China air pollution, water pollution, hazardous waste incineration,Noise nuisance, others 1 Costa Rica air pollution
1 Germany Exceeding the emission limit values
3 Ecuador air and water pollution
4 Guinea air pollution, health hazard
14 India air and water pollution, environmental degradation, noise pollution, Hazardous waste incineration, health impairments, regulatory violations, cartel agreements, tax evasion
2 Indonesia environmental degradation, tax evasion
1 Jordan water pollution, health hazard
2 Cameroon air and water pollution, health hazard
2 Kenya air pollution
1 Colombia Incineration of hazardous waste, cartel agreements
3 Lebanon Illegal limestone mining, air and water pollution, Exceeding the emission limit values, bribery
1 Morocco air pollution, health hazard
3 Mexico environmental degradation, hazardous waste incineration, air and water pollution, Health hazard, human rights violation
1 Myanmar human rights violation
7 Nigeria environmental degradation, air, soil and water pollution, exceedance the emission limit values, noise pollution, health hazard
1 Peru air pollution
4 Philippines Illegal hazardous waste incineration, water pollution, violation of labor and trade union rights, regulatory violations, health hazards
2 Romania Illegal hazardous waste incineration, emission limit values exceeded, price fixing
1 Zambia pollution
2 Zimbabwe air pollution
1 Slovenia Exceeding the emission limit values, health hazard
3 Spain Illegal mining, exceeding emission limits, air, soil and Water pollution, cartel agreements
2 South Africa cartel agreements, violation of labor and trade union rights
4 Syria Support for Terrorist Groups, Unfair Business Practices
1 Tanzania environmental degradation, air and soil pollution
2 Uganda air pollution, child labor
1 USA cartel agreements
Matthias Wüthrich, Head of the Corporate Responsibility Campaign for Greenpeace Swiss, said:
The sheer number of proven and probable cases is a scandal in itself. That alone shows that LafargeHolcim is a systematic polluter.  
 
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Monday, 14 November 2016

Welcome to LafargeHolcim

LafargeHolcim - the parent company of Aggregate Industries - will be the ultimate beneficiary of any scheme that destroys an East Devon farm, putting local water supplies and much more at risk.

We wrote about Holcim and human rights in 2013. Since then the company has merged with Lafarge. What do we know about LafargeHolcim? Have a look at a few of the news stories from 2016:
When you talk to those very nice people at the Public Exhibition, this is the company they represent.
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Thursday, 11 May 2017

‘Funding a terrorist organization can never be treated as a cost of doing business’

LafargeHolcim, the parent company of Aggregate Industries, continues to be the subject of the world's press following the resignation of its CEO and the funding of terrorists in Syria:

LafargeHolcim’s troubles do not end there. The company has also attracted criticism from Emmanuel Macron, one of the two candidates in the second round of the election, and from other French politicians for saying it was ready to supply cement for Donald Trump’s planned wall along America’s border with Mexico. The giant firm’s market value is stuck at 15% below its level in July 2015, when it began trading, as it struggles to cut costs and generate earnings. The company doubtless hopes that Mr Olsen’s resignation will help to put at least one of its headaches behind it.
Meanwhile, The New York Times warned that:
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.”
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Wednesday, 30 June 2021

LafargeHolcim’s sustainability rating – the small print

LafargeHolcim – the world’s largest cement producer with CO2 emissions to match – wants to help:


Not only that. Now is the time to act.


So why on earth do we have the scheme put forward at Straitgate Farm? Is all the talk of wanting to help, of sustainability, of cutting emissions, just that? Talk?
  

LafargeHolcim recently solicited an "Opinion on sustainability". Press releases were released. In the world of cement it’s a matter of greenwash, spin, repeat.


LafargeHolcim has obtained an "A1+ Sustainability Rating" from V.E – part of Moody’s ESG Solutions – with "an overall Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) score of 65 out of 100." 

What does it say about ratings – from an organisation that played a part in the subprime mortgage crisis – if companies like LafargeHolcim – with CO2 emissions the size of Venezuela – are awarded "A1+" whilst at the same time plotting such polluting and unsustainable schemes as the one being advanced for Straitgate? V.E says: 
LafargeHolcim appears to pro-actively integrate ESG factors into its strategy and operations. Its approach is supported by many quantified targets and comprehensive commitments. Convincing means and processes address the most material challenges. KPIs mostly follow positive trends. However, the Company's performance is affected by persistent controversies, to which, on average, the Company communicates but does not report sufficient remediation measures.
"Controversies"? This is where we come to the small print. Because for all the back slapping there’s this: 
As of April 20, 2021, Lafarge-Holcim was involved in 24 controversies, seven of which are considered of high (6) or critical (1) severity. - As already mentioned previously in this document, the most severe controversy (considered of critical severity) relates to operations of Lafarge in Syria between 2012 and 2014, where the Company was accused of financing terrorism. This accusation has drawn huge media attention since 2016 and has led the CEO to resign in 2017. In addition, the former CEO and seven former Lafarge executives are still under judicial investigation. In between, LafargeHolcim has taken remediation measures to make sure that similar events will not happen again. - Out of the six high severity controversies, two relate to environmental issues. The first one, which affects biodiversity occurred in 2018 in Indonesia, after a barge delivering coal to the Company's cement plant at Aceh coast spilled around 7000 tonne coals on the beach, damaging marine life and devastating the livelihoods of the community. Even if the Company ensured that all actions were conducted in a timely manner to minimize further environmental impacts, LafargeHolcim merely stated that the responsibility for this incident lied with the company owning the barge. The other controversy relates to dust and VOCs emissions in Nigeria in 2020, which reportedly would deteriorate air quality and expose residents and employees to health problems. On this allegation, the response from the Company was considered proactive since it corrected the local problem with technical adaptations and also developed a new system to better detect further dust emissions. - The other four high severity controversies mainly affect the Company's management of human resources, with also some effects on human rights and community issues. LafargeHolcim has been accused of violating labour rights in Jordan in 2021, and of abrupt termination of work contracts in Philippines in 2019. Also, in October 2020, press sources reported that a court in Florida has accepted a request for damages worth USD 270 million from LafargeHolcim to over 20 parties from Cuba whose land was nationalised to build a cement plant in 2001 by a company that was taken over later by Holcim. Finally, very recently (in March 2021), IndustriALL Global Union reported that the world union council of LafargeHolcim called the company to respect workers' rights, protect jobs, ensure workers' health and safety at work and drastically reduce precarious work. The demand came out of an online meeting where more than 100 participants from 42 countries discussed union strategies to demand an end to LafargeHolcim's "bad labour practices. On average, on these controversies, the Companyeither does not communicate significantly or reports on its position but does not really disclose specific initiatives taken to tackle those local events. - The 17 controversies of significant or minor severity to which the Company is confronted mainly relate to environmental issues (affecting water, energy and climate change, waste management, and local pollution), and human resources (mainly employees' health & safety). A more limited number of such controversies affects the way the Company handles issues related to communities, anti-competition, social standards in the supply chain, audit and internal controls, and fundamental labour rights. Here again, the Company appears to report its position on these cases although it does, in most cases, not sufficiently report on corrective actions addressing these events. Based on the high frequency of controversies observed, as well as on their severity and on the company responsiveness to these events, our assurance on LafargeHolcim's ability to ensure balanced relationships with stakeholders is low.
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Wednesday, 12 December 2018

AI’s generosity knows no bounds

We’ve posted about Aggregate Industries' troubles at Westleigh Quarry - the problems with dust, the problems with HGVs, the impact on the village of Burlescombe.

Only last month, DCC’s DMC committee spent less than half an hour nodding through an extension giving AI another 600k tonnes at Westleigh – in the face of numerous concerns from local residents.

What do we get this month? A press release from AI crowing:
As part of its commitment to positively contributing to the communities around its sites, Aggregate Industries has gifted three information boards to the residents of Burlescombe...

Residents will be thrilled; a few hundred pounds on marketing boards in return for their all suffering.

But then it’s no more than we should expect from this subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, the Swiss-French cement multinational. Last year, AI – a company with sales in the region of £1,200,000,000 – donated just £37k to the communities it impacts, together with £12k of materials; in other words £0.00004 for every £1 of material sold.

To put that £37k in context, here's what the executives of LafargeHolcim paid themselves in 2017:



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Monday, 12 April 2021

LafargeHolcim to get name change

LafargeHolcim – the parent company of Aggregate Industries – is to get a name change:  
Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim is proposing to simplify its name to Holcim Ltd, the world’s largest cement maker said on Friday, reverting to the name of the dominant partner in the 2015 merger that formed the company. 
The reason given: for "efficiency and impact, while building on the group’s legacy."

Others might think it's to escape from controversy over Syria, Myanmar, human rights and pollution.
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Wednesday, 29 July 2020

LafargeHolcim’s ‘internal controls have failed again after the Syrian IS scandal’


We posted how a UN report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar listed LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – as having ties to construction companies controlled by the Myanmar military, the Tatmadaw, who now face charges of genocide against the Rohingya people:
Company leadership links between Lafarge, now LafargeHolcim, with Sinminn Cement, a MEHL subsidiary company... The Mission finds that any foreign business activity involving the Tatmadaw and its conglomerates MEHL and MEC poses a high risk of contributing to, or being linked to, violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
Our post has recently been attracting high traffic levels, appearing on the first page of this Google search:

Clearly something was going on, and indeed it was.

Last weekend, SonntagsZeitung, a Swiss Sunday newspaper, published Wie LafargeHolcim in Burma am nächsten Skandal vorbeischrammte. Myanmar Now followed, with Swiss cement company backtracks on plans to sell to military cronies. This article pointed to the report by SonntagsZeitung’s journalist Konrad Staehelinhad:
The world’s largest cement producer is liquidating its Myanmar assets and reversing its previously stated intention to sell to its military-linked partners, after reporting in the Swiss press shed light on the possible impact on human rights of the sale.

More details can be found in the Myanmar Now article, but here are a few excerpts:
In June, LafargeHolcim said it was selling its shares [in a cement project] to companies owned by two of the project’s investors, Hla Myo and Ye Myint, according to reporting by journalist Konrad Staehelin in the German-language SonntagZeitung newspaper.
Both men are close allies and business partners of the military.
Staehelin, who has previously reported for Frontier Myanmar, wrote that the company likely knew about the potential problems with their partners but only pulled an “emergency brake” on the sale once the issue became public.
“Compared to the company’s intentions expressed in June for the sale, this is a 180-degree turn,” he wrote. “There is no other plausible explanation for this but that LafargeHolcim, confronted with SonntagZeitung’s reporting, switched course.”
“For LafargeHolcim, the liquidation of the Burma business means a write-down of a few million. More serious is the fact that internal controls have failed again after the Syrian IS scandal.”
Eva Mairinger, head of media relations at LafargeHolcim, said the company ceased operations in Myanmar in 2018, and claimed LafargeHolcim – which had previously been involved in funding terrorists in Syria – "takes all necessary measures to ensure we operate according to the highest standards of governance and human rights around the world":
We are now in the process of liquidating the dormant company and do not intend to sell anything.
Justice For Myanmar welcomed LafargeHolcim’s volte-face:
We see that by halting a planned sale to their business partners, who are members of the military cartel, LafargeHolcim is denying a future revenue stream to the Myanmar military, who are war criminals. Justice For Myanmar calls on LafargeHolcim to undertake the liquidation with full transparency and ensure it has no impact on human rights, in accordance with their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights.

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