Canada’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises

Case Summary as a Final Statement

SNC-Lavalin/SNC-Lavalin Chile and Group of Creditors

In January 2020, the Canada’s National Contact Point (NCP) was contacted by the Chilean NCP concerning the transfer of a request for review involving Canadian company SNC-Lavalin and its Chilean subsidiary SNC-Lavalin Chile.

The notifiers, a group of several SNC-Lavalin Chile creditors, alleged that SNC-Lavalin and SNC-Lavalin Chile were in violation of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, Chapters IV (Human Rights) and V (Employment and Industrial Relations).  The notifiers claimed that the company implemented a plan to transfer the profits back to the parent company, allowing its subsidiary to become insolvent and thus defraud creditors.

To conduct the initial assessment of a request for review, the NCP takes into account the information provided by the parties. In this particular case, the NCP required additional information from the Notifiers to determine if the allegations were relevant to furthering the purposes of the Guidelines.  The NCP made several attempts to obtain the additional information from the Notifiers through their legal counsel.  The Notifiers have not responded.   The NCP has therefore taken the decision to declare this request for review to be incomplete.

Given this situation, the NCP opted to close the case on June 11, 2021. The parties were advised accordingly.