There are two ways to greet the announcement from SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. that it has hired one of the world’s top corruption fix-it specialists as its chief compliance officer.

The good news is that Andreas Pohlmann led a successful clean-up effort at Siemens AG after the German-based industrial giant was embroiled in a nasty global bribery scandal in the 2000s. He’s a big hire by new SNC chief executive Robert Card and will oversee the introduction of “the type of world-class compliance system that he helped install at Siemens,” Mr. Card said.