KINIBIZ What woke Tiger up from a nice morning siesta early last week was China authorities accusing the senior executives of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s China operations of running a bribery conspiracy involving tens of millions of dollars for years. The bribes were given to people in the medical sector in exchange for boosting GSK product sales and increasing sales prices of GSK drugs.

This came just days after news from China police saying that several GSK executives already confessed to partaking in bribery and tax fraud. And the amount involved is just mind-boggling - about RM1.5 billion in funds channelled through travel agencies that served as fronts to pay doctors, hospitals and government officials.

Despite the terrible nature of things, Tiger had to roar and laugh, considering that earlier this year, a whistleblower claimed that bribery was at play in boosting drug sales in GSK’s China operations. GSK conducted an internal investigation into its China operations and subsequently declared that it found no proof of any wrongdoing or bribery there.

Now with this announcement by China authorities, Tiger wonders if GSK bigwigs turned to Panadol to dull the ache of embarrassment. If the conspiracy was true, how did GSK miss it when they investigated the allegation?

So, to Tiger, the most damning part of the whole GSK bribery story is how Mark Reilly, a British national who headed GSK’s operations in China, left the country after four senior executives were detained. His flight smells fishy to Tiger, and we know Tiger hates fish.

Well, the lesson in all this to Tiger is that good corporate governance invariably comes from the very top where the buck stops. You cannot commit a company to doing business in a legal, ethical and transparent way otherwise, because fish rots from the head and all that.

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This article was written by Khairie Hisyam.