Bribery of foreign public officials, conspiracy to commit fraud and forgery, money laundering, possessing property obtained by crime, and attempts to secretly smuggle the son of a former dictator into safer countries. Sounds like the plot of a twisted crime novel. Yet these are the charges laid against former executives at SNC-Lavalin (SNCL), one of Canada's largest engineering and construction firms. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police allege that over a decade or longer, SNCL funnelled more than S 120 million through offshore bank accounts as bribes to secure contracts in Libya. Separately, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, Swiss police, and other entities uncovered evidence that SNCL bribed or attempted to bribe government staff and leaders to win contracts in Africa and Asia. SNCL is also being investigated for unethical activities in contract bidding on a major Canadian project involving a Montreal super hospital. Almost a dozen former SNCL executives, most of whom held senior positions, either face charges of criminal activity or are under investigation. The company and its I 00 subsidiaries have been banned for a decade from bidding on World Bank funded contracts......

Discussion Questions

1. Use the MARS model to discuss the main direct predictors of wrongdoing at SNC-Lavalin.

2. Explain how moral sensitivity and moral intensity apply to the unethical behaviour among several SNCLavalin executives and other staff.

3. What steps should SNC-Lavalin and other companies in this situation take to minimize these types of corporate wrongdoing?