New Corruption Charges Haunt AltaLink’s Parent Company, SNC-Lavalin
Former SNC-Lavalin Vice-President Stephane Roy was arrested September 10 by Quebec’s anti-corruption unit and faces 11 charges in relation to alleged bribes from SNC to hospital officials to secure the lucrative McGill University super hospital contract in Montreal.
Roy is the ninth person facing charges in the Montreal hospital corruption scandal, along with: former McGill Hospital head Arthur Porter and his wife Pamela; former SNC-Lavalin CEO Pierre Duhaime; former senior VP Riadh Ben Aissa; former McGill Hospital executive Yanai Elbaz and his brother Yohann; Jeremy Morris of a Bahamas-based investment implicated in the fraud; and St-Clair Martin Armitage, an expert hired by the hospital to work on the project.
Arthur Porter has admitted he had ties to SNC before he is alleged to have received a $22.5-million bribe from SNC to award the $1.3 to $1.4-billion hospital construction contract to SNC. Porter admitted that during the bidding process for the Montreal super hospital, he was being wooed by SNC to work as an international lobbyist. This new information is important because it reveals Porter had close ties to SNC long before the prosecution case previously thought.
Also arrested and charged September 10 was well-known tax lawyer Constantine Kyres of Montreal-based Dentons Canada LPP. Kyres is charged with extortion and obstruction of justice as part of an alleged plot to pay for a statement from former SNC Vice-President Riadh Ben Aissa, one of the main characters in the widespread multinational corruption scandal that has affected SNC-Lavalin’s financial performance and reputation.
Sami Bebawi, another former senior SNC executive, was also charged with obstruction of justice as part of his role in the vast bribery and fraud scheme at SNC. An outstanding warrant exists for Bebawi’s arrest stemming from earlier charges including fraud, money-laundering and bribing a foreign official. Bebawi and Ben Aissa have been identified by authorities in court documents as co-conspirators in a plot to bribe Saadi Gadhafi, son of the tyrannous Libyan Moammar Gadhafi, in order to secure a number of multi-million dollar contracts in Libya.
Several other SNC officials have also been charged in Toronto in connection with an alleged conspiracy to bribe public officials in Bangladesh to win a contract to oversee construction of the World Bank-financed Padma Bridge Project. SNC has already been banned by the World Bank (WB) from bidding on any WB projects for 10 years due to the Padma Bridge corruption case.
The above reports are based in part on articles by: Montreal Gazette, CTV News and Globe and Mail. See this link for more information on the many Canadian and international corruption cases involving SNC-Lavalin.
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