Lafarge’s share price declined by 2.13% at the close of trading on Tuesday, October 18, 2022, losing 0.5 Kobo per share to close at N23 per share against N23.5 Kobo per share it recorded on the previous day.
The plunge was recorded on the trading floor of the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX).
BizWatch Nigeria understands that Lafarge’s share price plunged following a fine of $778 million (N339.4bn) imposed on the company by the United States (US) after it admitted to supporting Islamic State (IS), a terror group.
US prosecutors had argued that Lafarge paid IS and al-Nusra Front, through intermediaries, the equivalent of approximately $5.92 million in order to guarantee the protection of its plant in Jalabiya, which it had kept running after war broke out in Syria in 2011. The two armed groups controlled the area around the plant from 2013 to 2014.
Admitting to making such payments, Lafarge agreed to forfeit $687 million, and pay a fine of $90 million in its guilty plea.
Lafarge was, however, said to have eventually evacuated the cement plant in September 2014. At that point, IS took possession of the remaining cement and sold it for the equivalent of $3.21 million.
BBC reports that Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York – where the case was brought, said the conduct “by a Western corporation was appalling and has no precedent or justification.
“The defendants paid millions of dollars [to Islamic State], a terrorist group that otherwise operated on a shoestring budget, millions of dollars that [Islamic State] could use to recruit members, wage war against governments, and conduct brutal terrorist attacks worldwide, including against U.S. citizens.”
Meanwhile, the shares of Holcim Group, the company that recently bought Lafarge, were temporarily suspended on the Swiss stock exchange after news of the fine emerged.
