SNC-Lavalin to replace chairman Gwyn Morgan, CEO of EnCana when the company frac’d Rosebud drinking water aquifers in 2004

Gwyn Morgan to step down as SNC-Lavalin board chairman in May by CBC News, April 4, 2013
On May 1, board chairman Gwyn Morgan will step down form the company, SNC said in a news release Thursday. … Last fall the company’s former CEO, Pierre Duhaime, was arrested and charged with fraud in connection with the contract to build the McGill University Superhospital. And just last month a top executive with the company admitted to dubious political donations while testifying at the Charbonneau commission. There are also indications of suspicious payments to secure engineering contracts in Libya during the regime of former dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Once the three new directors and new chair are added to the three new directors added last year, SNC-Lavalin will have turned over half of its board since the improper payments scandal broke in 2011.”Throughout this process, the board aimed to reinforce the corporation’s commitment to integrity, and to regain trust among shareholders and the broader stakeholder community,” Morgan said.

SNC-Lavalin to replace chairman, directors in board revamp by Sophie Cousineau, April 4, 2013, The Globe and Mail
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The scandal-plagued SNC-Lavalin Inc. is revamping its board with the surprise departure of its chairman and the addition of three directors that underscore the Quebec Inc. roots of the Montreal engineering firm. Ian Bourne, who has been on SNC’s board since 2009 and who acted as interim chief executive officer following the departure of Pierre Duhaime in March of 2012, will replace Gwyn Morgan as chairman. Mr. Morgan has been on SNC’s board for the past eight years.

Mr. Bourne would be joined by former Alcan president Jacques Bougie, ex-Microcell Telecommunications president Alain Rhéaume, as well as the former head of the Forest Products Association of Canada Lise Lachapelle. They would succeed to former Metro boss Pierre Lessard and two company directors, David Goldman and Edythe (Dee) Marcoux. Should these three Quebec nominees be elected at the firm’s shareholder meeting, on May 2, SNC-Lavalin will have replaced half of its 12-member board since the engineering firm first uncovered $56-million in improper payments. SNC’s problems have grown incrementally since then, with the arrest of Mr. Dumaine and Ben Aïssa, the former head of SNC’s construction division who is currently detained by Swiss authorities. Both men stand accused of fraud, conspiracy and forgery in relation to the $1.3-billion contract to build the McGill University Health Centre’s new super-hospital. There are also swirling allegations that SNC-Lavalin bribed foreign officials to land contracts abroad, although none of these allegations have been proven in court.

SNC’s management proxy circular also reveals that Mr. Duhaime’s successor, Robert Card, earned $6.4-million in 2012 even though he only joined the engineering firm in October. Only a small proportion of this amount, or $225,000, comes from his yearly base salary of $900,000. Most of his compensation or $5.8-million came in the form of share-based awards. [Emphasis added]

[Refer also to:

Gwyn Morgan: The devil is in the details – an unofficial compilation of news stories relating to Gwyn Morgan (and the Fraser Institute by association)

Swiss Probe $139M SNC-Lavalin Laundering Case, Gwyn Morgan SNC-Lavalin Chair says company aiming at improving compliance, but won’t comment on allegation $22.5M payment linked to MUHC superhospital project Two of SNC longstanding Executives appeared on Toronto Court in June on charges of corrupting foreign officials. Did the federal Conservative Party adequately scrutinize the sale? Perhaps the answer lies in SNC-Lavalin’s intimate ties with the Conservative party. The Chair of SNC-Lavalin’s Board of Directors, Gwyn Morgan, was a former fundraiser for Stephen Harper and is also on the Board of Conservative-based Manning Centre for Building Democracy. Fellow Board member Hugh D. Segal is a Conservative Senator. In 2009, 10 SNC-Lavalin Directors including Patrick Lamarre, along with their spouses, contributed $25,000 to Quebec Conservative candidates – money which ended up in the coffers of Conservative Party Quebec Lieutenant Christian Paradis. In turn, SNC-Lavalin has benefited from lucrative contracts with the Conservatives. In addition to its sweet deal for AECL, SNC-Lavalin was awarded the contract to maintain 320 federal buildings worth$5.9 billion dollars. An audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers found questionable financial practices in connection with that contract. It may not be too late to scrutinize this secret deal and ensure that SNC-Lavalin does not destroy a crucial Ontario industry. As a southern Ontario Conservative MP, we urge you to live up to your promise to ensure CANDU technology survives. If the safety of current nuclear generating stations does not worry you, if the pride of preserving made-in-Canada technology does not move you, perhaps the impact of your riding’s economy will motivate you to stand up for something better [Emphasis added]

SNC Lavalin Board of Directors

SNC Lavalin Board of Directors SNC Lavalin
Gwyn Morgan, C.M. Chairman of the Board, Company Director
Gwyn Morgan CM Chairman and Chairman of Governance Committee

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. Bloomberg Businessweek
Mr. Gwyn Morgan, CM founded EnCana Corporation and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer from April 2002 to December 31, 2005

SNC-Lavalin hit with $1.65 billion class-action lawsuit by The Canadian Press, May 9, 2012. The statement, which names SNC executives Pierre Duhaime, Gilles Laramee, Riadh Ben Aissa, Stephane Roy, Gwynn Morgan, Ian Bourne and Michael Novak, did not disclose how much the suit is seeking. Duhaime, Roy and Ben Aissa have lost their jobs with SNC-Lavalin. Ben Aissa, SNC’s former head of construction, is in a Swiss jail on suspicion of corrupting a public official, fraud and money laundering tied to his dealings in North Africa. The suit cites similar allegations to the one filed by Rochon Genova, including that SNC misrepresented the adequacy of its internal controls and net income during the 2010 fiscal year. It claims those alleged misrepresentations inflated SNC’s share price. The claims arises from alleged payments made by SNC-Lavalin to members, associates, and agents of the Gadhafi regime to secure contracts for infrastructure projects in Libya. … The RCMP executed search warrants at SNC-Lavalin’s headquarters at the request of Swiss police. [Emphasis added]

Jessica Ernst Presented at Augustana Campus, University of Alberta Camrose  on March 8, 2012. On March 13, 2012, Gwyn Morgan, President and past CEO, Encana was honoured by University of Alberta

A toxic practice, a poisonous relationship: what’s the connection between water for fracking and SNC-Lavalin’s Chair Gwyn Morgan, past CEO of Encana? So if we care about our priceless water resources and the lands and people of the Peace, these are some questions we need answered: Who is driving energy and water decisions in Victoria? Is it the premier and her cabinet colleagues, or appointed advisors like Gwyn Morgan, founding president of Encana Gas and chairman of SNC-Lavalin? [Emphasis added]

The Gwyn Morgan File: Rise of a Shale Gas Baron (Part One of Two)

The Gwyn Morgan File: EnCana’s Grip on BC (Part Two of Two)

Citizen EnCana The double life of Calgary’s greatest corporation, Good Corporate Citizen or Evil Empire

Eminently Unsuitable Nikiforuk on Gwyn Morgan

Tories name EnCana founder to vet appointments

EnCana’s ‘field of dreams’ has Colorado locals crying the blues  …Gwyn Morgan, EnCana president and chief executive officer, said the company is a quality operator, adding that there are naturally occurring gas seeps “all over” what those in the energy business call the Piceance Basin. Mr. Morgan further added that the company’s seep in 2004 happened in an unusual geological situation. “We ended up with a seep in a creek,” Mr. Morgan said….

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