WB investigators don`t have to testify in SNC-Lavalin case

Risingbd Desk: Former SNC-Lavalin executives accused of bribery in Bangladesh are facing two pieces of potential bad news: one from the Supreme Court of Canada and the other from an engineer who is prepared to testify against his former bosses.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the World Bank`s anti-corruption staff have immunity and don`t have to appear in court in Toronto to provide information about the whistleblowers who first sounded an alarm about the engineering giant`s efforts to secure a supervision and advisory contract for the $3-billion Padma Bridge project in Bangladesh.

Lawyers for former senior vice-president Kevin Wallace had argued the defence should be able to examine bank records and challenge the World Bank investigators because they initially tipped off the RCMP, who then set up wiretaps to investigate the SNC-Lavalin employees.

CBC News has also learned the Crown halted its prosecution of former front-line engineer Mohammad Ismail in November and he`s now co-operating with police and is expected to testify against Wallace and former vice-president Ramesh Shah.
Both are awaiting trial in Toronto for allegedly trying to bribe officials in Bangladesh in 2011 in a failed attempt to win the bridge contract.

"I will definitely help investigators, whoever, RCMP or whoever, to get to the bottom of things," Ismail said in an interview this week.

He previously told a joint CBC/Globe and Mail investigation that SNC-Lavalin International Inc., a division based in Oakville, Ont., routinely budgeted for "project consultancy costs" to pay bribes or kickbacks to win contracts across Africa and Asia.

He insists he was simply a front-line employee caught up in the company`s schemes.

He says the criminal case has been a disaster for him and his family. He says he has sent out hundreds of resumes and taken courses to upgrade his engineering and management certifications, but has been unable to find work in the past five years.

"I am hopeful because there is no longer a criminal case there ... I am hoping now, an employer will understand my situation," he said.

Ismail is suing SNC-Lavalin for wrongful dismissal. The company, according to its statement of defence, says it fired Ismail for "performance issues" and for his alleged involvement in the case now before the courts. None of those claims has been tested in court.

Friday`s Supreme Court ruling overturned a lower court order from 2014, which the World Bank argued could put tipsters at risk of persecution if other countries followed suit and forced the international organization to hand over documents.
The ruling called the immunity "integral to the independent functioning of international organizations."

The Bangladesh bribery case is just one of three major corruption cases that continue to haunt the engineering giant.
Former executives await trial accused of fraud and corruption for the $1.3-billion McGill superhospital contract in Montreal.

The company itself is fighting foreign bribery charges over its operations in Libya, with a pretrial hearing set for 2018.
The World Bank ultimately pulled its funding for the Padma Bridge project. In 2013, it banned SNC-Lavalin from bidding on any World Bank-funded projects for ten years due to the corruption allegations in Bangladesh.

Source: CBC News

Risingbd/April 30, 2016/Mukul