GSK dismisses 110 employees in Chinese bribery scandal

9 March 2015

UK pharma major GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) has reportedly sacked more than 100 employees in China due to misconduct over 18 months ago, according to Bloomberg.

The dismissals came as a result of the internal investigation into the corruption scandal for which GSK was fined $480 million last year for bribing doctors to prescribe its products. China is not the only territory in which GSK has been subject to allegations of bribery: the company is investigating its Syrian operations, and has previously investigated such claims in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Poland. The number of whistleblower allegations against staff in China rose to 652 in 2014 from 48 the year before, according to GSK’s annual report published last week.

The company said it is working to improve the integrity of Chinese operations by increasing the monitoring of expense claims, strengthening compliance and hiring external investigators.

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