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Drug maker to pay $9M for oil-for-food scheme
AP ^

Posted on 05/13/2009 8:02:57 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com

Danish drug maker Novo Nordisk has agreed to pay a $9 million fine for giving kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's government through the United Nations oil-for-food program.

The Justice Department says Novo admits that it paid $1.4 million to the Iraqi government between 2001 and 2003 to get contracts to provide insulin and other medicines.

As part of the scheme outlined in a filing Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington, Novo covered the costs by inflating the price of the contracts by 10 percent before submitting them to the United Nations. Novo then falsely recorded the kickback payments as "commissions" in its books. [...]

The Justice Department said that beginning in 2000, the Iraqi government began requiring companies wishing to sell humanitarian goods to government ministries to pay a 10 percent kickback, often mischaracterized as an "after sales services fee," to the government to be granted a contract. The payments were not permitted under the program.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: iraq; novonordisk; oilforfood

1 posted on 05/13/2009 8:02:57 AM PDT by RatherBiased.com
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