Canada’s parliamentary ethics commissioner said on Monday that he would look into allegations that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau improperly pressured his former attorney general to call off a criminal case against a major engineering company based in Montreal.

The announcement, made in a letter to two members of Parliament, followed several days of allegations that Mr. Trudeau, or members of his staff, improperly tried to force a settlement of charges that the company, SNC-Lavalin, paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Libya when the country was ruled by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The allegations of the push to drop the case first surfaced last week in The Globe and Mail. Citing anonymous sources, the newspaper said that Mr. Trudeau’s office had pressed Jody Wilson-Raybould when she was his justice minister and attorney general to, in turn, pressure prosecutors to use a new law that would allow a “remediation agreement” with the company that would prevent a trial in exchange for paying a penalty.

Whether or not such pressure was brought to bear, prosecutors, who are independent of the government in Canada, have continued to pursue the company in court.