Anti-corruption? It’s all Greek to Novartis

ATHENS: Greek authorities are taking legal action against one of the country’s top anticorruption prosecutors over her handling of a bribery scandal involving Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis.

A judicial source said Eleni Touloupaki would be investigated for abuse of power, false declarations, breach of personal data laws and breach of judicial secrecy.

Ms Touloupaki has been overseeing a case that has rocked the nation, amid allegations justice officials were influenced by the former Leftwing government as they investigated claims senior politicians from several former governments had taken bribes from Novartis.

In June, Novartis’s Greek subsidiary admitted paying kickbacks from 2012 to 2015 to public hospital employees to boost sales of its products.

Novartis also admitted to bribing doctors between 2009 and 2010 to prescribe the company’s medication as part of an epidemiological study as a means of bulking up sales.

In a landmark case, the company last month agreed a multi-million euro settlement, of which Greece is seeking a share in compensation that

Athens puts at €3bn ($4.9bn).

Novartis Greece, a unit of the Swiss drug giant, admitted to financing the travel of employees of state-owned hospitals to the US between 2012 and 2015 “as a means to bribe these officials”, according to the US Justice Department.

As well as politicians, 100 doctors and 30 high-ranking civil servants have allegedly been caught up in the scandal.