MONTREAL — SNC-Lavalin Group’s chief executive said on Friday the company is looking at ways to protect its business in the event it loses a corruption trial that has created a political crisis for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
sAt the affair’s centre is a request by SNC-Lavalin for a remediation agreement that would have enabled it to avoid a court case which, if lost, would block it from federal government contracts for a decade. SNC-Lavalin is facing fraud and corruption charges related to allegations that former executives paid bribes to win contracts in Libya under Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which fell in 2011.
Being blocked from federal contracts would raise the threat of job cuts among the company’s Canadian workforce of 9,000. But politics impacted SNC’s ability to win new work in Saudi Arabia in December and January, amid tense relations between Riyadh and Ottawa. Saudi Arabia froze new trade with Ottawa in August after Canada demanded the release of jailed rights activists.