When Canada enacted a corporate antibribery law in 1999, many companies shrugged and went on doing business as usual. When other nations complained about Canada’s lack of enforcement, its government shrugged and did little. Even when the country prosecuted its first foreign bribery case against an oil and gas company in mid-2011, corporate counsel shrugged, knowing that the law had more loopholes than a badly knit ski cap.
Then the tide began to turn. General counsel took notice when the World Bank Group and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police opened investigations into SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the country’s largest construction and engineering firm, in late 2011. And many GCs were shocked a year later when the police arrested Montreal-based SNC’s former chief executive officer for improper payments to third parties. “Canada definitely has undergone a sea change,” says Kristine Robidoux, a partner in the Calgary office of Gowling Lafleur Henderson and a former in-house counsel in the electric utility and oil and gas sectors.
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