19 Sep 2014 GSK faces questions over direction of China corruption probe
GlaxoSmithKline still has questions to answer over bribery case in China. In 2013 Chinese police accused dozens of GSK employees, including Mark Reilly, its former China CEO, of fraudulent practices and briberies worth billions of dollars to doctors and officials around the country.
The British pharmaceutical company hired a private detective, Peter Humphrey, to investigate the source of an anonymous email “smear campaign”, suspecting Vivian Shi, its former head of government affairs, waging a vendetta against the company. However, something went wrong with the internal controls and the as pointed out by the FT “GSK is now facing questions over whether it put more effort into hunting the suspected whistleblower than it did into rooting out corruption”. The Company, whose CEO, Sir Andrew Witty, preaches an ethical agenda, will pay about £ 300m for bribing doctors.
In the meantime, GSK’s Remuneration Committee will revisit bonuses. Witty received £1.9m in 2013, with £245,000 deducted because he and the board were “mindful” of the impact of the Chinese scandal on the company’s reputation.
For further information, read the full articles on the FT and BBC on the following links:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324694904578598772902807846.html
https://www.ft.com/content/70c60db8-02ca-11e4-81b1-00144feab7de