Paris, February 1, 2026, 14:27 (CET)
- Capgemini said it will sell its U.S. subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions after scrutiny over an ICE-linked contract.
- The company said U.S. legal constraints tied to classified federal work limited its oversight of the unit.
- Capgemini said the subsidiary accounted for about 0.4% of estimated 2025 revenue and less than 2% of U.S. revenue.
Capgemini said it will sell its U.S. subsidiary Capgemini Government Solutions after French lawmakers pressed the group to explain a contract linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The company said it would start the divestment “immediately” and pointed to U.S. rules around classified work that, in its words, prevented “appropriate control” over parts of the unit’s operations. Capgemini said CGS represented about 0.4% of estimated 2025 revenue and less than 2% of its U.S. revenue. (Reuters)
The move matters less for the money than for the politics. A small, specialist contract can turn into a corporate problem fast when the client agency is under heavy public scrutiny.
It also puts a spotlight on a structural headache for foreign-owned contractors in the United States. Security rules can seal off a subsidiary from its parent, leaving the parent exposed to the fallout but limited in what it can see or direct.
In a LinkedIn post last week, chief executive Aiman Ezzat said the company learned “through public sources” of the nature of a contract awarded in December 2025 by the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE, adding: “The nature and scope of this work has raised questions.” He said the unit operates under a Special Security Agreement that requires separate governance and restricts the parent from accessing classified information or technical operations. (LinkedIn)
Capgemini has not named a buyer or put a timetable on the sale. The company is effectively betting that an exit is cleaner than trying to defend a governance structure that, by design, keeps the parent at arm’s length.
CGS has provided “skip-tracing” services for ICE — a term for locating a person by combining data analysis with investigative work. The Financial Times reported Capgemini had signed $12.2 million in skip-tracing contracts during Trump’s first administration and $2.5 million in earlier data support work, and said the company described a December ICE contract as not currently being executed. (Financial Times)
That kind of work is routine in sectors like collections and fraud checks. In immigration enforcement, the same tools can look very different, especially when they support detention or deportation.
In France, the controversy has also played out publicly. Le Monde reported that the company faced questions in parliament and calls for transparency from the government before it announced the sale and said the process would begin immediately. (Le Monde.fr)
There are still ways this could get messy. A sale of a contractor serving U.S. federal agencies can take time, and transferring work can require “novation” — formal government approval to move a contract to a new owner — along with security clearances and customer sign-off.
Capgemini competes with global IT and consulting firms such as Accenture and IBM for large outsourcing and transformation projects. The CGS unit is small, but the episode shows how quickly a niche government contract can collide with politics and spill into a listed group’s risk calculus.
