Ben Aissa arrested in Switzerland

SNC-Lavalin of Montreal is set to present its financial results for the first quarter of 2012 on Thursday. Ian Bourne, the company’s new vice chairman and interim chief executive officer, who took over after the departure of CEO Pierre Duhaime in March, will be on hand for the press conference to announce the company’s first quarter results.

A few days ago, on April 30, Riadh Ben Aissa, the company’s former executive vice president who was once in charge of many of the company’s extensive projects in Libya and North Africa, was arrested in Switzerland. Swiss officials said the Tunisian-Canadian was arrested on charges of bribery, fraud and money laundering.

Canada’s largest engineering-construction company has undergone a series of setbacks since Ben Aissa and financial officer Stephane Roy left the company on February 9. Internal audits at the company had found that $56 million had been misallocated to non-existent projects. Reports now say that the money was used to pay agents to secure projects overseas. Police raided the company’s offices on April 13.

SNC’s shares have fallen since the troubles began, but the company continues to announce new contracts. On May 1 it said it had renewed a contract with AltaLink to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for projects in Alberta. The contract is to deliver transmission lines and substations over the next five years.