France's highest court on January 16 rejected a request by French cement maker Lafarge to dismiss charges of complicity in crimes against humanity as part of an investigation over how it kept its factory running in Syria after war broke out in 2011.
The ruling, which upheld an earlier decision by a lower court, is not a verdict on guilt. It is procedural, and means the years-long probe into the company's criminal liability on the grounds of the highly symbolic crimes against humanity charges can continue.
The French firm, which became part of Swiss-listed Holcim in 2015, has been the subject of an investigation into its operations in Syria since 2016, in one of the most extensive corporate criminal proceedings in recent French legal history.
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