But that’s not all. In 2013, the World Bank banned SNC-Lavalin from bidding on contracts for a decade to settle a corruption inquiry into its activities in Bangladesh. An Indian government investigation showed that the company paid bribes there where it built a major hydroelectric dam.

Back home, Pierre Duhaime, SNC-Lavalin’s former chief executive, pleaded guilty this month to charges related to tens of millions of dollars in bribes the company paid to secure the contract to build a hospital complex in Montreal. A public official has pleaded guilty to taking bribes from SNC-Lavalin that landed it the contract to renovate the landmark Jacques-Cartier bridge in Montreal.

•What’s at stake? If convicted in the Libya case, SNC-Lavalin will be banned from federal government contracts for a decade. Such work is a major part of SNC-Lavalin’s business. Without it, the company could be financially crippled or vulnerable to a takeover by a foreign competitor.

•How has it responded? Publicly, the company’s new management claims all bribery and all other forms of lawbreaking are in its past.

Privately, it has heavily lobbied politicians at all levels of government and in all parties. The company was looking for changes to criminal law that would allow it to dodge a conviction by paying a large fine and proving that it now has clean hands — the United States and Britain have similar “remediation agreements.”

While it made no link, the Trudeau government introduced just such a change to the Criminal Code last March, burying it in the hundreds of pages of the federal budget bill.