Article on Bribery & Corruption
8 steps to evaluate risks of bribery and corruption
Geared to pharmaceutical industry but good for all
MELANIE TRINIDAD, ESQ., CFE
July/August 2013
|[pic] |
|©MARK WRAGG/ISTOCKPHOTO |
The recently implemented U.K. Bribery Act and reinvigoration of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have placed pharmaceutical companies and all businesses on notice. Here’s practical help for conducting risk assessments, developing global policies, employee training, monitoring, due diligence on third parties and more.
Not so long ago, pharmaceutical industry sales representatives commonly plied health care providers with golf outings and extravagant gifts. In 2006, I conducted an investigation at a multinational pharmaceutical company in Japan. The company’s compliance team and I conducted interviews with at least 20 sales reps who allegedly had bribed doctors to prescribe the company’s products. We discovered that the company had implemented and trained its employees on anti-bribery policies, but it never effectively adopted those policies and so didn’t weave them into the culture. As the review unfolded, it was evident that leadership didn’t fully embrace anti-bribery policies. The sales reps’ comments confirmed our suspicions that management didn’t have an anti-bribery mindset: “Leadership told me to do it; therefore I did.” • Anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) compliance is becoming a necessity for the world’s pharmaceutical industry because of a number of factors, including but not limited to: • Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly finding themselves doing business in some of the world’s poorest countries, which lack necessary infrastructure and controls to combat corruption. • The U.S., under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and the U.K., under the recently implemented Bribery Act, are prosecuting
Geared to pharmaceutical industry but good for all
MELANIE TRINIDAD, ESQ., CFE
July/August 2013
|[pic] |
|©MARK WRAGG/ISTOCKPHOTO |
The recently implemented U.K. Bribery Act and reinvigoration of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have placed pharmaceutical companies and all businesses on notice. Here’s practical help for conducting risk assessments, developing global policies, employee training, monitoring, due diligence on third parties and more.
Not so long ago, pharmaceutical industry sales representatives commonly plied health care providers with golf outings and extravagant gifts. In 2006, I conducted an investigation at a multinational pharmaceutical company in Japan. The company’s compliance team and I conducted interviews with at least 20 sales reps who allegedly had bribed doctors to prescribe the company’s products. We discovered that the company had implemented and trained its employees on anti-bribery policies, but it never effectively adopted those policies and so didn’t weave them into the culture. As the review unfolded, it was evident that leadership didn’t fully embrace anti-bribery policies. The sales reps’ comments confirmed our suspicions that management didn’t have an anti-bribery mindset: “Leadership told me to do it; therefore I did.” • Anti-bribery and anti-corruption (ABAC) compliance is becoming a necessity for the world’s pharmaceutical industry because of a number of factors, including but not limited to: • Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly finding themselves doing business in some of the world’s poorest countries, which lack necessary infrastructure and controls to combat corruption. • The U.S., under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and the U.K., under the recently implemented Bribery Act, are prosecuting