The Toronto Sun reports that SNC-Lavalin Group may have paid $1.9 million in fines for nine years of bid-rigging in Quebec, but it is still eligible for federal contracts, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

The Public Prosecution Service wouldn’t share its agreement with the company, which the Federal Competition Bureau had been investigating after suspicious bids on Montreal and Quebec City municipal public works.

Last December, SNC-Lavalin was also fined $280 million after it pleaded guilty to fraud in Quebec Provincial Court.

The company did admit, in an Agreed Statement of Facts, that it bribed the son of then-Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi with $47.7 million to win construction contracts across the pond.

Since then, SNC-Lavalin has won more than $6.8 million in federal contracts, including a $12,986 one from Fisheries on the same day it acknowledged it committed fraud.

So far, it’s the only Canadian company to be exempt from a 2015 Government-Wide Integrity Regime which dictates refrain from using corrupt federal contractors.

“Is it that if a company gets to be a certain size, the rules don’t apply to them anymore?” New Democrat MP Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.) told reporters.

“I put it to the government: Are they going to send a message to corporations that corruption will not be tolerated, or is it dismissed with a wink? They are guilty of staggering abuses. There is a policy in place. They should be banned. Is it only small businesses that get banned for 10 years?”

Only three small businesses who didn’t pay GST have been blacklisted by Public Works to date.

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