GSK and the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority: A New Agency Arrives in Health Care Enforcement
February 17, 2016 | The Insider: White Collar Defense and Securities Enforcement
It does not take much these days to notice that law enforcement has gone global. The transnational nature of prosecutions, enforcement actions, and regulatory proceedings can be seen in a host of recent cases. The prosecution of the FIFA scandal, for example, involves not just the U.S. Department of Justice but also the active participation of the Swiss authorities, and the governments of Costa Rica and Colombia have recently announced their own independent investigations. Similarly, the alleged manipulation of interbank lending rates has led to prosecutions by the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office and the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as actions by a less well-known enforcement agency, Japan’s Financial Services Agency. And as this blog noted over two years ago, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security led an investigation into Glaxo Smith Kline’s alleged bribing of officials and doctors to utilize the company’s drugs, which ultimately resulted in a $500 million corporate fine and a suspended sentence for a Glaxo executive who otherwise would have been relegated to a Chinese prison. [...]