Corruption Claims Continue Against AltaLink’s Parent Company, SNC-Lavalin

Over many years, Quebec-based SNC-Lavalin won major construction contracts in Libya worth billions of dollars. Further to the widely-reported close ties between the tyrannous Libyan Gadhafi family and SNC-Lavalin, new and astounding claims have recently been made by a former Executive Vice-President of SNC who has been jailed in Switzerland since April 2012 (CBC News). Riadh Ben Aissa has claimed in court documents that SNC put the wife of Saadi Gadhafi – one of Moammar Gadhafi’s sons – on its payroll in Morocco during Libya’s 2011 civil war to help her and Saadi’s children financially. This was done despite UN economic sanctions against Libya and Western military intervention.

Ben Aissa has also claimed that other senior SNC executives had a long history of lobbying the Gadhafi regime, doing favours for family members and funding junkets and lavish entertainment, including the following: former CEO Jacques Lamarre met Moammar Gadhafi several times to foster a lucrative relationship; Lamarre and another SNC executive tried to help Saadi Gadhafi get a visa from the Canadian Embassy in Tunis; SNC considered making Saadi Gadhafi a SNC VP; in 2008 SNC picked up Saadi Gadhafi’s tab for hotels, restaurants and limousines in Canada that totalled $2 million; SNC paid $550,000 for an exclusive night for Saadi Gadhafi and SNC employees to be entertained by rapper 50 Cent; and, SNC paid for a Toronto luxury condo for Saadi Gadhafi, including $200,000 for remodelling.

With respect to SNC’s activities in Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Anti-Corruption Commission won’t complete its probe into a corruption conspiracy until Canada completes the trial of 3 Canadian SNC employees who allegedly tried to give bribes to Bangladesh officials in order to secure lucrative contracts to supervise the Padma Bridge project (The Daily Star, Probe International). This probe, which has been ongoing since 2011, led the World Bank to issue an unprecedented 10-year ban on SNC-Lavalin and many of its affiliates from bidding on any World Bank-financed projects. The World Bank accused SNC of a “conspiracy to pay bribes and misrepresentations when bidding for Bank-financed contracts”. AltaLink was included in the list of SNC-owned companies banned by the World Bank.

To date about 2 dozen former SNC executives, other senior staff and SNC agents, including former CEO Pierre Duhaime, are being investigated and/or have been charged with a variety of offences including: bribery, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, money-laundering, use of forged documents, participating in secret commissions, influencing foreign officials, making illegal political donations, bid-rigging or contract rigging. SNC-Lavalin and/or its former executives or agents are being or have been investigated in many countries, SNC has had contracts cancelled or has been banned from bidding in several countries, or SNC has been involved in allegedly questionable business practices in many countries including: Canada (e.g., Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador), USA, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, Panama, Bahamas, British Virgin Islands, Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Cambodia. As well, Swiss and French authorities have been investigating SNC. The engineering giant is being or has been sued by many parties including: investors over alleged misrepresentations of SNC’s financial status, former employees for alleged wrongful dismissals, other contractors, and by over 800 homeowners in Quebec.

See this link for more detailed information on corruption investigations of SNC-Lavalin. SNC is building AltaLink’s high voltage power lines in Alberta.

~ by RETA on March 20, 2014.