Former SNC-Lavalin executive sentenced to prison term in bridge bribery case

financialpost.com:

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 say.

Normand Morin, once a high-ranking vice-president at the engineering firm, received the sentence Tuesday after his conviction for corruption and fraud last month.

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

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

Fournier, who served as chief of staff to Jean Chretien when he was Opposition leader in the early 1990s, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison and has since received full parole.

Ex-SNC vice-president Kamal Francis was also hit with forgery and fraud charges in 2021. Court proceedings are ongoing, the RCMP said.

SNC-Lavalin — now known as AtkinsRealis — agreed in 2022 to pay Quebec nearly $30 million over three years to settle criminal bribery charges stemming from work on the bridge that spans the St. Lawrence River 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 resulted from a complex investigation dubbed Project Agrafe (“Staple”) that started in 2013. It was carried out by the Sensitive and International Investigations division of the force, mandated to investigate criminal activity that poses a threat to Canada’s government