In 2012 Pfizer resolved a $60 million Foreign Corrupt Practices Act action concerning conduct in Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Serbia. (See here).
Beginning in 2019, Pfizer disclosed new FCPA scrutiny.
Pfizer disclosed additional FCPA scrutiny in 2020.
Recently, Pfizer disclosed additional FCPA scrutiny and its most recent quarterly filing lists the following instances of FCPA scrutiny.
- “In June 2019, we received an informal request from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit seeking documents relating to our operations in Russia. In September 2019, we received a similar request from the SEC’s FCPA Unit. We have produced records pursuant to these requests.”
- “In June 2020, we received an informal request from the U.S. Department of Justice’s FCPA Unit seeking documents relating to our operations in China. In August 2020, we received a similar request from the SEC’s FCPA Unit. We have produced records pursuant to these requests.”
- “In March 2023, we received an informal request from the U.S. Department of Justice’s FCPA Unit seeking documents relating to our operations in Mexico. We are producing records pursuant to this request.”
Last week Frank Han, the former Director of Global Compliance Analytics at Pfizer, filed a civil complaint against the company and various individuals in which he claims he was terminated for identifying certain potential Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues within the company.
In pertinent part, the complaint alleges:
“PLAINTIFF developed and presented a new algorithm on analysis of PFIZER’S global external fundings (between Q2 of 2019 through Q3 of 2021) to Potentially Influential Government Officials (“PIGOs”) to detect fraud. While developing this algorithm, PLAINTIFF discovered that DEFENDANTS spent over ten times the amount of money on PIGOs in China than they had spent on other countries during the same time frame. Specifically, PLAINTIFF discovered that DEFENDANT PFIZER had spent $12 million in the United States, $11 million in Canada, $7.5 million in Russia, and $7.1 million in the United Kingdom during this time frame but had spent $168 million on PIGOs in China between Q2 of 2019 through Q3 of 2021. Out of the $168 million PFIZER had spent on PIGOs in China during this time, $138 million had gone to corporate sponsorships. By way of comparison, DEFENDANT PFIZER had spent just $2 million on corporate sponsorships in the United States during this time.”
