SNC-Lavalin chief says job losses possible amid scandal
Undervalued firm a potential takeover target, head warns
The head of the Montrealbased construction giant at the centre of a political firestorm warned the company remains undervalued, is vulnerable to a takeover and at risk of shedding jobs in Canada.
Neil Bruce, president and chief executive officer of SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., said Wednesday that Canadian prosecutors should be grilling ex-executives instead of the firm.
The company is facing fraud and corruption charges related to decade-old activities in Libya, and efforts by Justin Trudeau’s government to intervene have exploded into a crisis for the prime minister.
“Justice is upside down on this,” Bruce said in a BNN Bloomberg television interview. “We’ve apologized for the behaviour of the previous management, and ultimately, I firmly believe the prosecution service should hold those responsible to account and stop damaging the innocent people.”
SNC-Lavalin once had 20,000 workers in Canada and now has 9,000, he added. “If we can’t put some of this behind us, it’s highly likely that we’ll have less,” he said.
Bruce’s comments are the latest twist in a saga over whether his company will get a deferred prosecution agreement, a negotiated fine that would end prosecution and help it avoid a ban on bidding for federal contracts that would come with a potential conviction.
Trudeau’s former attorney general alleges the prime minister and several staff pressured her to help SNC.
The scandal is dominating political debate in Canada, coinciding with a drop to second place in opinion polls for the governing Liberal party.
Trudeau, whose finance chief delivered his final budget this week before an election this fall, has lost two cabinet ministers, one of his top political aides and Canada’s top bureaucrat to the controversy.
Bruce said Wednesday he nev- er spoke with Trudeau directly about job losses or a deferred prosecution agreement, but that his company lobbied through normal channels.
“We put forward in our submissions what the public interest case is,” he said.
“We’ve never asked for charges to be dropped, we’ve never asked for this to be circumvented in any way.
“We’ll follow the rule of law, whether it’s the court process or a remediation agreement.”
He said he never threatened to move the company headquarters from Montreal: “This is where we want to be, in terms of our base.” But the chief executive also signalled the company could pivot its focus elsewhere.
“We can dial up, dial down, where we work. And if we are not in a position to do federal contracts, then that’s really clear. We don’t do that.”