Former SNC-Lavalin Manager Sentenced to Prison in Bridge Bribery Case

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A former SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. executive has been sentenced to three and a half years in prison in connection with a bribery scheme for a bridge repair contract in Montreal, the RCMP said.

Normand Morin, once a senior vice president at the engineering firm, received the sentence on Tuesday after being convicted of corruption and fraud last month.

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A police investigation found that SNC-Lavalin executives paid about $2.3 million in bribes in the early 2000s to secure a $128 million contract to repair the deck of the Jacques-Cartier to secure the bridge.

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In 2017, Michel Fournier, former chief executive of Federal Bridge Corp., admitted receiving bribes through Swiss bank accounts between 1997 and 2004.

Fournier, who served as chief of staff to opposition leader Jean Chretien in the early 1990s, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and has since been fully paroled.

Former SNC Vice President Kamal Francis was also charged with forgery and fraud in 2021. The court case is ongoing, the RCMP said.

SNC-Lavalin – now known as AtkinsRealis – agreed in 2022 to pay Quebec nearly $30 million over three years to resolve criminal bribery allegations related to work on the bridge connecting the St. Lawrence Electricity spanned between Montreal and Longueuil, Que.

The deal, a so-called deferred prosecution agreement, allowed the company to continue doing business with the governments of Quebec and Canada, as well as abroad.

The RCMP said the charges were the result of a complex investigation called “Project Agrafe” (“Staple”) that began in 2013. It was carried out by the police’s Sensitive and International Investigations Division, which is tasked with investigating criminal activity that poses a threat to Canadian government institutions, officials or the integrity of the Crown.

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SNC-Lavalin was previously charged with bribery and fraud related to its previous work in Libya, which became the focus of the high-profile dispute between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould in 2019.

In December 2019, the company agreed to a settlement in which the construction division pleaded guilty to a single count of fraud and was fined $280 million. Other charges relating to acts committed in Libya between 2001 and 2011 were dropped. The company retained the right to bid on federal contracts.

That same month, former SNC-Lavalin vice president Sami Babawi was found guilty of bribing foreign officials and pocketing millions of dollars. He was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in January 2020 after a jury found him guilty of five fraud and corruption charges.

He has until early 2025 to repay the $24.69 million he earned from his crimes.

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