Canadian Construction Giant SNC-Lavalin Names New Legal Chief

SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., a design and engineering giant, has seemed in for its new best law firm, marketing associate general counsel Andrée-Claude Bérubé.

Bérubé will start off Dec. 1 as SNC’s new common counsel, the Montreal-based organization declared this 7 days. She replaces Charlene Ripley, who is leaving SNC for a new function at mining enterprise Teck Assets Ltd.

Bérubé has “successfully led different vital initiatives even though demonstrating excellent management skills” considering that she joined the organization in 2020, Ian Edwards, SNC’s CEO, claimed in a statement.

She had expended the previous decade doing work at Sherritt Intercontinental Corp., a Toronto-dependent mining and refining company that employed her in 2010 from huge Canadian legislation organization McCarthy Tétrault.

SNC’s addition of Bérubé will come a yr just after it recruited Ripley to be its legal chief as the corporation was caught up in political scandal related to its settlement of bribery allegations in Libya. SNC tapped Edwards, its former chief monetary officer, to switch the retiring Neil Bruce as its chief executive in 2019.

In 2020, the enterprise introduced a restructuring of its resources unit that saw SNC shed around 9,000 personnel and exit its operations in 21 nations around the world.

SNC’s difficulties ongoing final calendar year when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police hit the firm and two previous executives with fraud and forgery expenses involving a bridge in Montreal. SNC agreed in May to a C$30 million settlement in that circumstance.

In June, Janet Oh, who invested approximately two a long time in legal roles at SNC, where by she was a previous head of the company’s worldwide dispute resolution workforce, still left to turn out to be legal chief for WSP Global Inc., a Montreal-primarily based experienced services consulting agency.

Ripley claimed through e mail she’s leaving SNC to turn out to be standard counsel at Teck, a Vancouver-centered pure methods enterprise specializing in mining and mineral improvement. She’ll succeed Teck’s longtime head of professional and lawful affairs, Peter Rozee, who is retiring as of Jan. 1, 2023.

“I am very fired up about my new role and pleased with what we were being able to accomplish at SNC-Lavalin in excess of the earlier a few several years,” Ripley mentioned.

Ripley prior to SNC-Lavalin spent virtually two decades as the best law firm for 3 distinct companies—Vancouver-dependent gold miner Goldcorp Inc., Texas-dependent electrical power outfits Linn Electrical power Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. She is becoming a member of Teck after the enterprise just lately installed a new major government.

Teck, which has also confronted political entanglements in Canada, agreed past month to the $738 million sale of its stake in an oil sands mine in Alberta.

Earlier this yr, Teck joined global mining giants BHP Group Ltd. and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. in buying a stake in US copper extraction startup Jetti Means LLC.