{"id":206858,"date":"2019-03-26T02:29:24","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T06:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=206858"},"modified":"2019-03-26T02:31:28","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T06:31:28","slug":"snc-lavalin-backtracks-on-ceos-comments-surrounding-potential-job-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/03\/26\/snc-lavalin-backtracks-on-ceos-comments-surrounding-potential-job-losses\/","title":{"rendered":"SNC-Lavalin backtracks on CEO’s comments surrounding potential job losses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MONTREAL \u2014 SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is walking back a statement\nby its CEO, who said last week he never cited the protection of 9,000 Canadian\njobs as a reason the construction giant should be granted a remediation\nagreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
In a statement posted to its website Monday afternoon, SNC-Lavalin says it never threatened the federal government. (Tma5e \/ Shutterstock.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Neil Bruce told The Canadian Press last Wednesday that if\nSNC-Lavalin is convicted of criminal charges and barred from bidding on federal\ncontracts its workers would end up working for the Montreal-based company’s\nforeign rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have never put forward anything that is purely an\neconomic argument about jobs and why we think we qualify for a DPA (deferred\nprosecution agreement),\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cWe put forward an argument\nin terms of the public interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The charges stem from allegations the engineering firm paid\nmillions of dollars in bribes to win government business in Libya between 2001\nand 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement posted to its website Monday afternoon,\nSNC-Lavalin says it never threatened the federal government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHowever, the company had made it very clear to the\ngovernment through its advocacy campaign that the implementation of a\nremediation agreement \u2014 known as a deferred prosecution agreement \u2014 was the\nbest way to protect and grow the almost 9,000 direct Canadian SNC-Lavalin jobs,\nas well as thousands of indirect jobs through its more than 5,000 suppliers\nacross Canada. The company still asserts this\nposition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that an agreement is not \u201ca get out of jail free\ncard,\u201d as a few commentators have stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is an internationally recognized tool for protecting\ninnocent stakeholders from the criminal actions of a few bad actors in a\ncompany.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SNC said countries around the world have made this tool\navailable to their prosecution and that Canada was at a competitive\ndisadvantage until it passed its own version of the DPA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the remediation agreement is not available to\nSNC-Lavalin, the company will continue to vigorously pursue a path that allows\nit to move forward and defend its innocent employees to the fullest as it moves\nforward through the Canadian court system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly held up\npotential job losses as the main reason he and other top officials spoke with\nformer attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould about her decision not to\nintervene after federal prosecutors declined to negotiate a deferred\nprosecution agreement with SNC-Lavalin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from cabinet last month, has\nsuggested political considerations rather than jobs were behind the alleged\npressuring by the Prime Minister’s Office to hammer out an agreement with the\ncompany.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier Monday, Chile’s state-owned copper mining company\nsaid it has terminated its contract with SNC-Lavalin, accusing the construction\ngiant of breaching its obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Codelco said SNC-Lavalin failed to live up to its\ncommitments under a US$260-million contract attached to one of the world’s\nlargest open pit copper mine, citing quality issues and delays in subcontractor\npayments and project execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contract, awarded in November 2016, included\nengineering, supply and construction of two new acid plants for a smelter at\nthe Chuquicamata mine in northern Chile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The announcement from Codelco comes after SNC-Lavalin\nslashed its profit forecast twice in two weeks earlier this year, stemming\nlargely from problems with the project and plunging SNC’s share price to\n10-year lows of around $34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SNC-Lavalin announced last month it had agreed to settle a\ndispute with the Chilean state miner through a fast-tracked arbitration\nprocess, which it expected would yield \u201csignificant recoveries in the future\u201d\non losses of about $350 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project cancellation \u201clikely means relations between the\ntwo companies have further soured\u201d and could make clawing back any losses more \u201cdifficult\u201d\nduring arbitration, analyst Derek Spronck of RBC Dominion Securities said in a\nresearch note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SNC-Lavalin did not respond immediately to requests for\ncomment about the contract termination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is walking back a statement by its CEO, who said last week he never cited …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":205787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206860,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206858\/revisions\/206860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}