Police close investigation on GlaxoSmithKline China's bribery case

Chinese police have finished the investigation on the suspected bribery case of the local subsidiary of UK pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and handed it over to prosecutors, local police said there today, reports the state news agency Xinhau.

After 10 months of investigation, police found that William Mark Reilly, a British national and executive of GSK China, had ordered his subordinates to commit bribery, said the police of Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province, in a statement. Mr Reilly allegedly pressed his sales teams to bribe hospitals, doctors and health institutions through various means and gained an illegal revenue worth of billions.

He and two other executives, Zhang Guowei and Zhao Hongyan, were also suspected of bribing officials with the industry and commerce departments of Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese authorities, when they began investigating GSK last year, accused it of using travel agencies and consultancies to transfer hundreds of millions in bribes over several years.