Elbaz gets 39 months for taking $10M bribe
Arthur Porter’s former right-hand man, Yanaï Elbaz, will not have to pay damages for having received a $10-million bribe when the contract for the McGill University Health Centre’s so-called superhospital was awarded to SNC-Lavalin. Quebec Court Judge Claude Leblond made his decision on the damages Monday morning. He ruled that a civil court, and not criminal court, is the more appropriate forum for such a matter. Elbaz, 49, is named in two significant lawsuits related to how the contract was tainted by his and Porter’s decision to accept bribes. Elbaz, a father of four, was the assistant director general of planning and real estate management for the MUHC and part of the committee that decided which group would win the $1.3-billion contract to build the superhospital. SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., the leader of a consortium that won the contract, is suing Elbaz, his brother Yohann, and two of its own executives for $47 million. The MUHC is suing Elbaz, Porter’s estate and former SNC-Lavalin executive Riadh Ben Aissa for $30 million. Porter died in 2015 in a jail in Panama while he was challenging Canada’s request to have him extradited. In his decision, Leblond noted that the MUHC’s request for damages was not part of the common suggestion on Elbaz’s sentence presented on Nov. 26 by defence lawyer Nadine Touma and prosecutor Claudie Lalonde-Tardif. The judge cited jurisprudence that established the state can’t seek damages after a common suggestion on a sentence has been made unless it is for a “modest sum.” But on that point, MUHC lawyer Alexander De Zordo argued last month that the prosecution kept the MUHC, the victim of the crime, in the dark on its negotiations with Touma until an agreement was reached on the sentence just days before Elbaz pleaded guilty. The judge also agreed with Touma’s argument that, based on precedent, the amount of damages sought in a criminal case should be “easily quantifiable.” The MUHC was seeking $934 million in damages from Elbaz. Leblond also agreed with the common suggestion that Elbaz serve an overall 39-month sentence for the crimes he admitted committing. With term served factored into the sentence, Elbaz was left with a 38-month prison term and will be eligible for full parole in a little more than a year. “The judge decided not to award damages, notably because it was not easy to determine the losses,” Lalonde-Tardif told reporters after Elbaz was sentenced. “It’s certain that (the sentence) sends a message to dissuade others, that crime doesn’t pay and that there can be significant sentences (in cases like Elbaz’s). In November, Elbaz pleaded guilty to receiving a bribe, breach of trust, conspiring to launder money with Porter and transporting or transferring the proceeds of a crime. He admitted to accepting the bribe from SNC-Lavalin executives to award the contract to build and maintain the MUHC hospital complex. Over the course of 20 years, the contract, which is still valid, is worth more than $4.6 billion. The figure the MUHC sought was 20 per cent of the contract. A few years ago, the provincial government adopted legislation allowing the victims of such crime to seek 20 per cent of the value of a contract tainted by fraud or bribery. The $10 million Elbaz received was part of a $30-million bribe arranged by Elbaz with Porter. More than $22 million was paid out before some executives at SNC-Lavalin began to ask questions about a contract through which SNC-Lavalin was paying Sierra Asset Management Inc., a company set up by Porter to launder the money. Lalonde-Tardif informed the court that the Crown plans to confiscate money held in bank accounts (frozen in Switzerland) and real estate from Elbaz at a future court date. The confiscations are expected to total $6 million, which means the Crown has yet to trace roughly $4 million of the money Elbaz pocketed from the bribe.