SNC racks up contract wins, denies liability in lawsuit allegations

MONTREAL — SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. was so worried about losing managers while it scrambled to deal with the fallout from an ethics scandal last year that it paid out millions in special retention bonuses to keep them coming to work.

MONTREAL – Canadian engineering giant SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. has hired Watergate investigator Michael Hershman to advise the company on anti-corruption issues as it takes steps to strengthen its business practices amid ongoing police investigations and allegations of wrongdoing involving former employees.

Montreal – When Montreal’s new english-language megahospital gets built as expected by the end of next year, it’ll be the biggest healthcare complex in Canada. Six thousand medical employees. Five hundred patient beds. Twenty operating rooms with teleconference capability. Some 2.4-million square feet of floor space in all, eclipsing that of the Empire State building in New York City.

MONTREAL – Quebec’s special anti-corruption police squad has arrested former SNC-Lavalin Inc. chief executive Pierre Duhaime. Montreal media outlets reported the arrest Wednesday morning. A spokesman for the squad did not immediately return calls. SNC shares fell 1.5% to $40.29 in morning trading as the news spread.

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. is demanding that all independent consultants it does business with complete an “ethics exam” by the end of the year or risk losing their contracts with the company. The move has provoked indignation among some of those consultants, one of whom denounced “the absurdity” of the engineering giant unilaterally forcing its will on its business associates to attempt to repair its battered reputation.

BANGALORE, India (Reuters) - Despite the high-profile nuclear agreement this week between Canada and India, Canadian engineering firm SNC Lavalin Group Inc will not be rushing to build reactors in India until its concerns over liability are addressed. SNC Lavalin International President Ronald Denom told Reuters on Thursday that his company would proceed cautiously in light of Indian liability rules, which have so far sidelined U.S. companies such as General Electric Co . ...

MONTREAL — Allegations of impropriety swirling around SNC-Lavalin and Quebec’s construction industry has prompted the Shriners to take greater control of who builds its new Montreal hospital, the philanthropic group said Thursday. The Shriners selected SNC-Lavalin to manage construction of the $127-million hospital that will be built adjacent to a $2.35-billion super-hospital set to open in the summer of 2015.

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. said it won a contract worth more than $650-million to help build an oil sands treatment plant near Fort McMurray, AB, a significant boost to its oil and gas business