After a four-year legal saga that hurt its bottom line and resonated to the highest levels of Canadian politics, Montreal-based design-build giant SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. announced on Dec. 18 that it has settled federal charges stemming from alleged bribes by long-departed executives related to gaining Libya construction contracts between 2001 and 2011.
The firm's construction unit, SNC-Lavalin Construction Inc., agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of fraud. All charges against the parent firm and its international marketing arm, SNC-Lavalin International Inc., have been withdrawn, the company said.
作为和解的一部分，该部门将在五年内支付21350万美元的罚款，并将受到三年缓刑。分析师和观察家认为该公司本可以面临多年的联邦合同禁令。
"This is a game-changer for the company and finally allows us to put this issue behind us," said corporate President and CEO Ian L. Edwards, named to the top job permanently this year. He offered an apology "for past misconduct."
Edwards added: "We are beginning an exciting new chapter that is focused on our future growth and further de-risking our business. I want to thank all of our stakeholders, and especially our employees, for their continued dedication and support.”
SNC-Lavalin Group also said it will hire an independent monitor and will update its compliance and ethics programs as the monitor requires. it already is subject to monitoring by the federal government and World Bank, based on previous settlements.
The firmhad upgraded ethics programssignificantly for its global operations under previous CEO Robert Card, an American ex-executive of CH2M, who took over in 2012 after Pierre Duhaime, SNC-Lavalin CEO since 2009, was terminated and later arrested.
He pleaded guilty in early 2019 to a federal charge linked not to the Libya bribe scheme but to payoffs on a Montreal hospital project, and was sentenced to 20 months of house arrest.
No charges were filed against Jacques Lamarre, Duhaime's predecessor for 13 years, who was said to have authorized Libya payments made since the late 1990s, according to testimony by terminated SNC-Lavalin North Africa executive Sami Bebawi. A Canadian federal jury on Dec. 15 found Bebawiguilty of five charges他面对，包括欺诈，外国官员的腐败和洗钱犯罪收益。加拿大的《环球报》报纸说，拉马尔否认了与贿赂计划的任何联系。
Neil Bruce, who was elevated to SNC-Lavalin CEO in 2015 but stepped down this year, had sought to negotiate a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid criminal prosecution, a legal approach the Liberal government enacted in 2018 but then declined to offer to the firm.
The negotiations led to a political firestorm in Canada that nearly cost Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-election this year, with the company planning to take its case to trial, which would have been lengthy.
Edwards说，“解决了对[SNC-Lavalin]绩效的拖累的不确定性和分心的问题”，并将消除法律悬垂，因为它重组更多地专注于高性能的全球工程服务。
“该公司不期望”建筑子公司的认罪（自2015年被起诉以来没有竞标任何新合同）将影响[其]资格竞标未来与其新战略方向一致的项目，”新利18备用网址Edwards added. "While it is possible that the plea ... may present risks in the near-term, the company believes these risks will be manageable and does not anticipate that the plea will have any long-term material adverse impact on the company’s overall business."
SNC-Lavalin shares closed up 19% to C$28.70 in Toronto on Dec. 18, its best gain since October. The stock is down 50% this year, said The Wall Street Journal.
SNC-Lavalin is “no longer a pariah investment thesis,” wrote Maxim Sytchev, an analyst at Toronto-based National Bank Financial, in a Dec. 18 client note.
"Leverage concerns were alleviated earlier in 2019 while the better parts of the business have been performing solidly," he said. "The sole overhang now rests with the remaining [fixed-price backlog]; we see value in the shares if these remaining contracts are run-down smoothly as the strategy shift towards a more consulting-type entity."
即便如此，加拿大人media and observers在年底仍在努力应对案件的影响
SNC-Lavalin ranks at No. 9 on ENR's list of the Top 150 Global Design Firms, reporting about $3.6 billion in worldwide engineering revenue last year and at No. 53 on ENR's list of the Top 250 Global Contractors, with $3.8 billion in worldwide construction revenue reported last year.
