Posted on 08/17/2011 12:36:04 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
WASHINGTON (AP) — International business can be an ethical jungle, but it's rare to get details of bare-knuckle tactics on tape.
According to a recording and sworn testimony provided to The Associated Press, a lawyer in Mexico for a leading U.S. drug manufacturer offered to pay an opposing expert in a lawsuit if he would leave the country on a key court date to undermine the case.
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Baxter said the lawyer was not authorized to make any offers, and it has severed all ties with him.
The recording and its disclosure offer an unusual glimpse of fishy maneuvers in the global marketplace and come as the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission crack down on misconduct by U.S. companies abroad, part of a multinational effort to clean up commerce.
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"Tomorrow I'll buy you a ticket to New York," Jorge Hernandez Marin, a Mexico City lawyer representing Baxter, said on the recording. "You go to New York with your wife. And you say that your son fell. He broke his leg on a bicycle in Manhattan and you had to go. And that's why you didn't accept the assignment."
The lawyer was talking to accountant Rafael Aspuru Alvarez, an expert witness for Translog, a trucking company embroiled in a $25 million legal dispute with Baxter's subsidiary in Mexico.
Lawyer Hernandez Marin then added: "If it's better for you, and you tell me, `You know, yes, I accept your offer' — it's an example— `You know, but not New York, I want to go to Las Vegas.' Tomorrow, eh?"
At another point in the recording, Hernandez Marin tells the expert, "If you tell me, `You know, I was going to charge 100,000 pesos (about $8,100),' I'll pay you double."
(Excerpt) Read more at centurylink.net ...
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