In the week following the arrest in
November on fraud charges of Pierre Duhaime, relieved of his post as CEO of
SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. eight months earlier over $56-million in unauthorized
payments, the Montreal engineering giant bagged four plum contracts. On its own
or as part of consortia including respected partners like General Electric Co.,
the Saudi oil Leviathan Aramco, and large private equity funds worldwide, SNC
was tapped to build state-of-the-art power stations in Poland and Newark, N.J.,
to manage oilfield services in Saudi Arabia, and to build a $1.5-billion,
350-kilometre power transmission line in Alberta.
It seemed that the “division of labour” credo of Duhaime’s permanent replacement, Robert Card,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers was working like a charm. Card and SNC’s board had agreed he should focus on day-to-day business while the board dealt with a scandal over alleged bribes at home and abroad that just wouldn’t quit.
It might have seemed to Card, 59, a U.S. native and 38-year veteran of leading U.S. engineering firm CH2M Hill, that outsourcing SNC’s corrupt-culture issues to his board was both novel and efficacious. But it’s neither.
The chief ethics officer of any enterprise is the CEO, by choice or default. CEO since October, Card has learned the hard way that the continuing probes into alleged episodic moral failure at SNC (principally suspicions of bribery and other improper payments) now underway by Montreal’s anti-corruption squad,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. by the RCMP, and by Swiss authorities, have intruded upon his efforts to manage the basic business. Renowned Montreal billionaire investor Stephen Jarislowsky, largest SNC shareholder with 14 per cent of the stock, had counseled that it’s important for Card “not to waste his time on old problems.” But the “old” problems, including suspicions of wrongdoing in SNC’s success in winning a huge, $1.3-billion contract to build a “superhospital” in its Montreal hometown, don’t carry an expiry date.
And so, scarcely a month on the job, Card faced up to reality, becoming hands-on with the ethics deficiencies at his new firm. He is implementing a thorough overhaul of SNC’s day-to-day practices in securing contracts at home and abroad. Scaring up contracts is a key function of enterprises like SNC, one of the world’s largest engineering and construction firms, whose 32,000 employees currently are at work on projects in more than 100 countries. That requires them to develop and hopefully benefit from carefully nurtured relationships with decision-makers worldwide who approve contracts, and the often shadowy agents influencing them. That is the day-to-day business of SNC: Constantly winning contracts without crossing the line into morally dubious conduct.
Scandals have a life of their own, well beyond the control of CEOs and boards. As 2012 unfolded, SNC found it appropriate to part with four top officers, and to demote chief financial officer of whom vice-chair and acting CEO Ian Bourne earlier said: “We have complete, absolute confidence in our CFO.”
The board has abruptly decided some of its directors should not stand for re-election in 2013, without naming them. The board has also acknowledged “material weaknesses” in its practices, without naming them, either, and the role they played in a $1.2-billion Bangladesh bridge project where bribery may have been involved, or an alleged scheme in which unidentified agents associated with SNC were supposed to spirit one or more members of Muammar Gaddafi’s family out of Libya.
With considerable fanfare, the firm detailed its new ethics-compliance hotline, its new committee to vet contracts sourced from foreign reps, or “agents”; and integrity checks on new and current SNC agents that it has hired the non-profit anti-bribery TRACE International to perform. Fair enough, except that all these protections and additional safeguards should have been in place decades ago.
Investors have launched the inevitable class-action lawsuits against SNC over its governance, actions that will be tough to defend since none other than Jarislowsky has faulted the board. The Caisse de dép?t et placement du Québec, also a big long-term SNC investor, has publicly seconded Jarislowsky’s criticism.
To his credit, Card has dismissed speculation before his appointment about an SNC in retreat, that would soon withdraw from the world’s roughest neighbourhoods and sell its equity stakes, or “concessions,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from.” in assets as varied as water systems, airports, bridges, mass transit systems, power plants and other infrastructure SNC has built. But Card is intent on keeping those assets, which account for 27 per cent of total earnings, and whose profitability in SNC’s latest quarter jumped by 20.7 per cent while the basic business suffered a 15.1 per cent drop in profits.
A growth-oriented Card is also determined to bolster SNC’s capabilities and client roster in hydrocarbon, water and environmental projects,High quality stone mosaic tiles. where the firm has a weak presence, and to more vigourously exploit a massive U.S. market that currently accounts for just 4 per cent of SNC revenues.
Putting SNC on a growth trajectory, rather than retreating, is likely Card’s best hope of revitalizing a global workforce that will continue to be under a cloud for some time. Apart from the continuing police investigations and the class action suits, questions about the United Nations-funded Bangladesh bridge project have made SNC ineligible for U.N.-financed projects in the developing world markets in which SNC traditionally has secured a great many of its contracts.
Card and SNC’s board would be well-advised to speak about what lies behind the many allegations over its conduct. And they should replace a chair dating from 2007, Gwyn Morgan, who green-lighted Duhaime’s appointment in 2009, and on whose watch SNC has lost $1.1 billion in shareholder value since Duhaime’s departure.
In the meantime, TC has a $2.3-billion crude pipeline underway to relieve the notorious congestion at the hub at Cushing, Okla., which promises both to lower pump prices and achieve higher profitability for producers.
TC also has a mega-project underway in Mexico, where it has already built and operates the major Guadalajara and Tamazunchale gas pipelines. While breaking ground on an expansion of the latter this year, TC will start work on the 530-kilometre El Encino-to-Topolobampo pipeline awarded to it by Mexico’s state electricity authority, Comision Federal de Electricad (CFE).
Girling is also a player, along with its crosstown peer Enbridge Inc., in the mooted project to carry Alberta crude to Eastern refineries and markets. Girling has indicated this is both economically and technically feasible,High quality stone mosaic tiles. by converting part of TC’s Canadian main line gas pipeline to crude. In contrast with Keystone, calls for an east-west crude artery originated outside the company, especially with MPs in Atlantic Canada.
Canada might be one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers and reserve holders. But much of our oil is exported, while Central and Eastern Canadian markets have long been reliant on imports from the Middle East and South America. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canadian refineries are running well below capacity, and one is slated to close. Canadian energy security and job creation make solving this long-standing issue worth taking a hard look at.
TC has more than once lit an exploding cigar in its Keystone XL ambitions. The Alberta oilpatch came on too forcefully in its Washington lobbying, in the aftermath of a Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in which the Obama Administration and U.S. regulators felt, with reason, that the U.S. had been misled over promised safety provisions by a smooth-talking BP PLC.
It seemed that the “division of labour” credo of Duhaime’s permanent replacement, Robert Card,Trade platform for China crystal mosaic manufacturers was working like a charm. Card and SNC’s board had agreed he should focus on day-to-day business while the board dealt with a scandal over alleged bribes at home and abroad that just wouldn’t quit.
It might have seemed to Card, 59, a U.S. native and 38-year veteran of leading U.S. engineering firm CH2M Hill, that outsourcing SNC’s corrupt-culture issues to his board was both novel and efficacious. But it’s neither.
The chief ethics officer of any enterprise is the CEO, by choice or default. CEO since October, Card has learned the hard way that the continuing probes into alleged episodic moral failure at SNC (principally suspicions of bribery and other improper payments) now underway by Montreal’s anti-corruption squad,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. by the RCMP, and by Swiss authorities, have intruded upon his efforts to manage the basic business. Renowned Montreal billionaire investor Stephen Jarislowsky, largest SNC shareholder with 14 per cent of the stock, had counseled that it’s important for Card “not to waste his time on old problems.” But the “old” problems, including suspicions of wrongdoing in SNC’s success in winning a huge, $1.3-billion contract to build a “superhospital” in its Montreal hometown, don’t carry an expiry date.
And so, scarcely a month on the job, Card faced up to reality, becoming hands-on with the ethics deficiencies at his new firm. He is implementing a thorough overhaul of SNC’s day-to-day practices in securing contracts at home and abroad. Scaring up contracts is a key function of enterprises like SNC, one of the world’s largest engineering and construction firms, whose 32,000 employees currently are at work on projects in more than 100 countries. That requires them to develop and hopefully benefit from carefully nurtured relationships with decision-makers worldwide who approve contracts, and the often shadowy agents influencing them. That is the day-to-day business of SNC: Constantly winning contracts without crossing the line into morally dubious conduct.
Scandals have a life of their own, well beyond the control of CEOs and boards. As 2012 unfolded, SNC found it appropriate to part with four top officers, and to demote chief financial officer of whom vice-chair and acting CEO Ian Bourne earlier said: “We have complete, absolute confidence in our CFO.”
The board has abruptly decided some of its directors should not stand for re-election in 2013, without naming them. The board has also acknowledged “material weaknesses” in its practices, without naming them, either, and the role they played in a $1.2-billion Bangladesh bridge project where bribery may have been involved, or an alleged scheme in which unidentified agents associated with SNC were supposed to spirit one or more members of Muammar Gaddafi’s family out of Libya.
With considerable fanfare, the firm detailed its new ethics-compliance hotline, its new committee to vet contracts sourced from foreign reps, or “agents”; and integrity checks on new and current SNC agents that it has hired the non-profit anti-bribery TRACE International to perform. Fair enough, except that all these protections and additional safeguards should have been in place decades ago.
Investors have launched the inevitable class-action lawsuits against SNC over its governance, actions that will be tough to defend since none other than Jarislowsky has faulted the board. The Caisse de dép?t et placement du Québec, also a big long-term SNC investor, has publicly seconded Jarislowsky’s criticism.
To his credit, Card has dismissed speculation before his appointment about an SNC in retreat, that would soon withdraw from the world’s roughest neighbourhoods and sell its equity stakes, or “concessions,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from.” in assets as varied as water systems, airports, bridges, mass transit systems, power plants and other infrastructure SNC has built. But Card is intent on keeping those assets, which account for 27 per cent of total earnings, and whose profitability in SNC’s latest quarter jumped by 20.7 per cent while the basic business suffered a 15.1 per cent drop in profits.
A growth-oriented Card is also determined to bolster SNC’s capabilities and client roster in hydrocarbon, water and environmental projects,High quality stone mosaic tiles. where the firm has a weak presence, and to more vigourously exploit a massive U.S. market that currently accounts for just 4 per cent of SNC revenues.
Putting SNC on a growth trajectory, rather than retreating, is likely Card’s best hope of revitalizing a global workforce that will continue to be under a cloud for some time. Apart from the continuing police investigations and the class action suits, questions about the United Nations-funded Bangladesh bridge project have made SNC ineligible for U.N.-financed projects in the developing world markets in which SNC traditionally has secured a great many of its contracts.
Card and SNC’s board would be well-advised to speak about what lies behind the many allegations over its conduct. And they should replace a chair dating from 2007, Gwyn Morgan, who green-lighted Duhaime’s appointment in 2009, and on whose watch SNC has lost $1.1 billion in shareholder value since Duhaime’s departure.
In the meantime, TC has a $2.3-billion crude pipeline underway to relieve the notorious congestion at the hub at Cushing, Okla., which promises both to lower pump prices and achieve higher profitability for producers.
TC also has a mega-project underway in Mexico, where it has already built and operates the major Guadalajara and Tamazunchale gas pipelines. While breaking ground on an expansion of the latter this year, TC will start work on the 530-kilometre El Encino-to-Topolobampo pipeline awarded to it by Mexico’s state electricity authority, Comision Federal de Electricad (CFE).
Girling is also a player, along with its crosstown peer Enbridge Inc., in the mooted project to carry Alberta crude to Eastern refineries and markets. Girling has indicated this is both economically and technically feasible,High quality stone mosaic tiles. by converting part of TC’s Canadian main line gas pipeline to crude. In contrast with Keystone, calls for an east-west crude artery originated outside the company, especially with MPs in Atlantic Canada.
Canada might be one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers and reserve holders. But much of our oil is exported, while Central and Eastern Canadian markets have long been reliant on imports from the Middle East and South America. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canadian refineries are running well below capacity, and one is slated to close. Canadian energy security and job creation make solving this long-standing issue worth taking a hard look at.
TC has more than once lit an exploding cigar in its Keystone XL ambitions. The Alberta oilpatch came on too forcefully in its Washington lobbying, in the aftermath of a Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in which the Obama Administration and U.S. regulators felt, with reason, that the U.S. had been misled over promised safety provisions by a smooth-talking BP PLC.
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