The consulting engineering firm SNC-Lavalin no longer has to fear criminal repercussions for having paid bribes for the renovation of the Jacques-Cartier bridge 25 years ago because a judge has just authorized that she pays nearly $30 million in fines as part of a remediation agreement.

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"The court grants the request and approves the agreement as is," Judge Eric Downs said on Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse.

This agreement, a first in Canada, will allow SNC-Lavalin to continue to obtain public contracts from the government.

The engineering and construction giant had been charged with fraud against the government, forgery, fraud and conspiracy in September 2021, for events that occurred between 1997 and 2004.

However, last September, the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) proposed to SNC-Lavalin inc. and SNC-Lavalin International to negotiate the payment of a fine, which would allow the firms to continue to receive public contracts.

This agreement provides for SNC-Lavalin and SNC-Lavalin International to pay a total sum of $29,558,777, the DPCP announced in a press release.

During the hearing, prosecutors recalled that the consulting engineering firm had around sixty subsidiaries employing more than 37,000 people around the world. There was therefore an “economic interest” in such an agreement occurring, it had been pleaded.

During the police investigation, SNC-Lavalin had also offered its cooperation by disclosing several documents that the police were looking for.

"The company has always been willing to provide documents, even incriminating ones," said the DPCP.

And, in the last 10 years, SNC-Lavalin has "transformed" its culture, so that measures are taken to curb corruption, it was added.

"The company can be reassured that [l'entreprise] has understood the message and that it has amended itself", had pleaded a prosecutor during the hearings.

- With Jean-Louis Fortin