China Fines GlaxoSmithKline Nearly $500 Million in Bribery Case
In a record penalty, a court in southern China on Friday imposed a fine of nearly $500 million on GlaxoSmithKline, the scandal-hit British pharmaceutical giant, and sentenced its former head of China operations to at least 2 years in prison, a state news agency reported. The penalty was for bribery in a case that has exposed widespread corruption in China’s medical sector.
The fine of 3 billion renminbi, or $487 million, was imposed on the company by a court in Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province, after a secret trial against GlaxoSmithKline’s China unit and its former head, Mark Reilly, on the bribery charges, said the Xinhua news agency. “This is the biggest fine ever issued in China up until now,” said the brief Xinhua report.
Mr. Reilly and other unnamed defendants received prison sentences of up to 3 years, said the report. It gave no details of how Mr. Reilly and the others had pleaded, or whether any would appeal the verdict.
The initial Xinhua report was vague, but suggested that Mr. Reilly’s sentence was suspended for four years, and that he would be deported, perhaps immediately.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/business/international/china-fines-glaxosmithkline-nearly-500-million-in-bribery-case.html?emc=edit_na_20140919
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