What Is It About Politicians and Corporate Bribery Scandals?

Another possible case of influence peddling - this time on behalf of Brookfield Asset Management

On the surface, this is about a strange venture involving Canadian private equity firm Brookfield Asset Management - whose chair until a few weeks ago was Mark Carney. But it seems to me that this particular event is really just one example of a much larger pattern.

In 2016, as Matt Taibbi recently wrote, the U.S. Justice Department settled a claim against the Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht on a case “involving at least $788 million in illegal payments to officials all over the world, as a means of rigging bids and securing contracts.”

As the terms of the settlement were being negotiated, Brookfield made a big purchase from Odebrecht: a 57 percent stake in Rutas de Lima, a private road toll authority in Peru. According to the U.S. Justice Department, Rutas de Lima has demonstrably engaged in corrupt activities.

What’s of interest to us right now is how the 2016 settlement didn’t include - or even mention - Rutas de Lima. That, presumably, would be to Rutas de Lima’s considerable advantage, as their assets would thereby be shielded from the U.S. government. It’s notable that one of the two Justice Department officials who signed off on the settlement had - both before and after his time at Justice - also happened to work for a law firm that represented Brookfield in Washington.

None of which proves any wrongdoing on the part of Brookfield. But it does hint to an association between them and a combination of criminal behavior and political influence peddling. And it turns out that, not only does Brookfield still own Rutas de Lima in 2025, but they’re still actively engaged in legal efforts to recover profitable concessions lost after in the aftermath of the original prosecution.

To be clear, Mark Carney only joined Brookfield in 2020 - long after the Odebrecht settlement - so it’s unlikely any of this directly impacts him.

The thing is, that corporate bribery and government influence peddling are not exactly rare events. In fact, they’re not even rare in Canada.

Remember SNC-Lavalin? That’s the Montreal-based engineering and construction firm that got into some trouble back in 2018 when they were caught bribing (there’s that word again) Libyan officials with upwards of $48 million to secure contracts.

That was a problem. But the Liberal government in Ottawa seemed to have felt that a criminal conviction for SNC-Lavalin in the case would have been a much larger problem. A conviction, after all, would have limited the company’s ability to bid for future federal construction contracts.

During the summer of 2019, as you probably don’t recall, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion concluded that Prime Minister Trudeau used inappropriate means in an attempt to "circumvent, undermine and ultimately discredit" the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions. In other words, political heavy hitters went to bat to protect favored corporations from the consequences of an international case of criminal bribery (and fraud).

In the end, SNC-Lavalin Construction Inc. pleaded guilty to just one fraud charge related to Libya, and agreed to a $280 million fine and three years’ probation. Other charges were dropped, avoiding a full trial on the broader allegations. And SNC-Lavalin - since rebranded as AtkinsRéalis - is still happily signing on for many of the largest infrastructure projects in the country.

I suppose government contracts and bribery go together like peanut butter and jam. The Libyan scandal wasn’t even SNC_Lavalin’s first kick at the can. There was, after all, the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) bribery scandal of 2007 where company executives funneled $22.5 million to MUHC executives to seal the $1.3 billion contract for the new Glen site hospital in Montreal.

But I’m specifically interested in the close personal relationships that seem to inspire powerful government officials to actively subvert the judicial process to cover for such massive crimes. Those seem to represent the greatest threat to our social contract. And, as we’ve just seen from developments in the Brookfield/Rutas de Lima case, they’re aren’t showing signs of disappearing.