About 50 investigators from Quebec’s anti-corruption unit raided the headquarters of engineering consulting firm Roche before dawn Wednesday.
The investigators began searching through documents at Roche’s Quebec City site at 6:30 a.m. local time, CBC News said.
Anne-Frédérick Laurence, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Unité Permanente Anticorruption (UPAC), said “no arrests are expected for now, but investigators will be questioning some employees.”
“The elements of this search, as well as the motives of the investigation, are of a confidential nature,” Laurence said.
Roche’s Montreal and Quebec City offices were also raided in 2010. Police then were looking for evidence about allegations of fraud and breach of trust in the construction industry, CBC News said.
UPAC was created in early 2011.
“Roche has been mentioned at the Charbonneau Commission, the [Quebec] province’s inquiry into corruption in the construction industry. In 2012, a former Roche employee alleged that some of his former co-workers had engaged in bribery in bid-rigging,” CBC News said.
Roche said it didn’t know the reasons for the raid and described itself as committed to “ethics, integrity and professionalism,” the Montreal Gazette said.
It pledged to act “with all the necessary transparency so that normal activities can resume” and said it would have no further comment.
Roche has about 1,700 employees and has performed projects in about 50 countries.
___________
Richard L. Cassin is the Publisher and Editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here.
Comments are closed for this article!