Today I want to look at internal controls for third parties. One of the questions that GSK faced during the bribery and corruption investigation of its Chinese operations is how an allegedly massive bribery and corruption scheme occurred? The dollars paid out went upwards of $500MM, which coincidentally was the amount of the fine levied by the Chinese court on GSK. It is not as if the Chinese medical market is not well known for its propensity towards corruption, as prosecutions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) are See more +

Today I want to look at internal controls for third parties. One of the questions that GSK faced during the bribery and corruption investigation of its Chinese operations is how an allegedly massive bribery and corruption scheme occurred? The dollars paid out went upwards of $500MM, which coincidentally was the amount of the fine levied by the Chinese court on GSK. It is not as if the Chinese medical market is not well known for its propensity towards corruption, as prosecutions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) are littered with the names of US companies which came to corruption grief in China. GSK itself seemed to be aware of the corruption risks in China. In a Reuters article, entitled “How GlaxoSmithKline missed red flags in China”, Ben Hirschler reported that the company had “more compliance officers in China than in any country bar the United States”. Further, the company conducted “up to 20 internal audits in China a year, including an extensive 4-month probe earlier in 2013.” GSK even had PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as its outside auditor in China. Nevertheless, he noted, “GSK bosses were blindsided by police allegations of massive corruption involving travel agencies used to funnel bribes to doctors and officials.”

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