Wilson-Raybould was unexpectedly shuffled out of her role last month and given the more junior post of veterans' affairs minister. (Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa Editing by Matthew Lewis)

The investigation comes as Trudeau's new justice minister and attorney general, David Lametti, signals he may still ultimately intervene in the case of the Montreal-based engineering and construction giant.

Lametti replaced Wilson-Raybould, who Trudeau's office allegedly pressured to seek an out-of-court settlement, according to the Globe and Mail newspaper citing unidentified sources. The prime minister said on Thursday that he had never "directed" anyone on the SNC-Lavalin case.

The House of Commons justice committee will hold a meeting this week to decide whether to investigate the issue as well.

Canada's former justice minister and attorney general, Judy Wilson-Raybould, is a native Canadian. Liberal Party of Canada

Lametti was asked in an interview with CTV's Question Period earlier this week whether he could order prosecutors to give SNC-Lavalin a so-called remediation agreement, as it has been seeking.

"As a final step, I could issue a directive, but the Public Prosecution Service is an independent service," he told CTV. "They get to operate independently -- that's part of our rule-of-law system, and the director has done so in this case."

SNC-Lavalin has long lobbied for a negotiated settlement in the case, which dates back to 2012 and has cost the company at least $C5 billion in lost revenue, chief executive Neil Bruce said in December. Preliminary hearings are still ongoing, SNC spokeswoman Daniela Pizzuto said Monday, declining to say if or when a criminal trial would begin.


The political controversy comes at an inopportune time for the company. It issued a profit warning on Monday for the second time in two weeks after it failed to reach an agreement over a dispute with a client in a Latin American mining project.

Shares fell 4.8 per cent to $C34.94 in Toronto, after plunging 28 per cent - the most in at least 27 years - on the initial warning in January.

​with Bloomberg

Reuters