Capgemini announced February 1 it will divest Capgemini Government Solutions, the US subsidiary holding a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to track foreign nationals on US soil.
The decision came days after French NGO Observatoire des Multinationales exposed the December 2025 contract for skip-tracing services—data analysis work that identifies and locates individuals. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure and MPs publicly questioned how the €26 billion company failed to catch the arrangement.
The governance defence
Capgemini's framing centres on compliance, not ethics. The company says "usual legal constraints imposed in the United States on contracting with federal entities conducting classified activities did not allow the Group to exercise appropriate control" over the subsidiary. That structure—autonomous operations to meet US federal security requirements—existed before the controversy broke.
The subsidiary accounts for 0.4% of estimated 2025 group revenue and under 2% of US sales. Small footprint, large reputational problem.
What triggered the move
Timing matters here. The contract existed since December. It became a crisis last week when the NGO went public, coinciding with intensified protests after federal immigration agents killed US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. CGT Capgemini union launched a petition demanding the company end "tracking down, arrest, kidnapping and deportation" work.
Activist Scott Galloway called for tech company boycotts. Organisers staged a February 1 "National Shutdown" general strike. Capgemini made its announcement the same day.
The real question
When did leadership first know about the ICE contract? The company's statement doesn't say. The subsidiary's autonomous structure was a known compliance requirement for classified work—not a surprise discovered last week.
History suggests divestiture transfers problems rather than solving them. The work doesn't disappear; another vendor picks up the contract. For Capgemini, that's enough. The reputational damage stays with someone else's balance sheet.
The French company joins a growing list of multinationals recalculating the cost of US government contracts against public pressure. In this case, 0.4% of revenue wasn't worth the fight.