SNC-Lavalin loses court bid for special agreement to avoid criminal prosecution
Posted March 8, 2019 8:26 am.
Last Updated March 8, 2019 4:17 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA — SNC-Lavalin has a lost a court bid to have the public prosecutor overturn its refusal to negotiate an agreement that would see the company avoid a criminal trial.
The Federal Court of Canada tossed out the Montreal-based engineering company’s plea for judicial review of the 2018 decision by the federal director of public prosecutions.
The ruling says the law is clear that this is not subject to judicial review, except for cases where there is an abuse of process.
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SNC-Lavalin faces legal trouble over allegations it paid millions of dollars in bribes to obtain government business in Libya — a case that has prompted a political storm for the Trudeau Liberals.
The company unsuccessfully pressed the director of prosecutions to negotiate a “remediation agreement,” a legal means of holding an organization to account for wrongdoing without a formal finding of guilt.
The director told SNC-Lavalin last year that negotiating a remediation agreement would be inappropriate in this case, prompting the company to ask the Federal Court for an order requiring talks.
When asked about the ruling, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke of the need to protect jobs, but didn’t say if a deal for SNC-Lavalin is still possible.
“In the specific case of a DPA and Lavalin, as I’ve said from the very beginning, that is a decision for the attorney general to make alone,” Trudeau added.
The option of a DPA is still technically on the table for the current justice minister until a verdict is issued on the criminal charges.
