Canadian Lawyer InHouse

Is the development of an anti-corruption/ anti-bribery compliance program part of your plans for next year? O ne of the things we're looking at is how to deal with anti-corruption and anti-bribery legislative compliance as a result of the high profile case recently involving the SNC Lavalin chief executive officer being charged criminally — it has the business community nervous. For any company that does business in the U.S. and internationally there is a risk that a company may not be compliant in terms of some of the activities it's conducting abroad. Under U.S. and European legislation the law can be quite broad and liability can be huge in terms of the impact on your company if you find somebody has knowingly or unknowingly run afoul of the applicable legislation by offering a bribe or solicitation payment. It's an area we're definitely keeping an eye on and doing the appropriate training to make sure our employees are aware of it as well as creating a process for compliance, particularly when we're thinking about growing internationally as well as in the U.S. We recently had an in-house training session for our executives and senior management team with one of the lawyers from one of our external law firms and it was very well received. It's an eye-opener when you see and hear about the number of active RCMP investigations now going on in Canada at various companies. Is your organization exploring opportunities to expand business internationally or domestically? Vice president, legal & general counsel TimberWest Forest Corp. Vancouver How will the proposed growth activity change your role? I have to be more aware and more proactive about issues. Luckily I also have the ability to know about a potential transaction long before anybody else does. One of the most important things you 28 • F eb r u a ry 2013 INHOUSE MARK BRENNAN Anna Fung We are looking to expand internationally. Up until last year TimberWest was publicly traded but was recently bought out by two Canadian pension funds — British Columbia Investment Management Corporation and Public Sector Pension Investment Board — that are very much in support of the company's growth agenda. They want us to look at suitable opportunities both in Canada and in the U.S. and internationally. When I came on board last year, I was brought in because our pension fund owners were very insistent that an in-house lawyer and VP be hired. They felt a company of our size needed to have in-house counsel that would be accountable to the board of directors as well as management that they can turn to and be assured there is somebody responsible for keeping an eye on what's happening with the company internally.

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