Peter Humphrey's 2012 Presentation - Pharma Bribery

In 2012 Peter Humphrey gave a presentation, the gist of which was fraud in China. At the time Humphrey was Managing Director, ChinaWhys Co Ltd.

The opening slideshow presentation offered the following:

China is undergoing a get-rich-quick social revolution and economic development phase. 

After the Cultural Revolution there was a spiritual vacuum a loss of moral compass.

The pressure to make money is enormous, especially among the young. Money means lifestyle and prestige. 

Fraud, embezzlement and corruption is rife in both the public and private sectors – read the local press! 

The 81 page slideshow then offered some past examples of fraud committed in China.

Page 36-38 focuses on Pharma bribery. It's quite eye-opening, although the pharmaceutical company isn't actually mentioned by name.

Slide 1

Slide 2

Slide 3

It's recently been revealed that Humphrey was hired by GlaxoSmithKline China to investigate a potential whistleblower.

Why did Glaxo specifically hire Peter Humphrey?

Surely they would have done their homework on Humphrey and his company ChinaWhys?

Why would Glaxo hire a person or organisation who has a history of presenting examples of pharmaceutical fraud and bribery?

Glaxo claim that they hired Humphrey to do some background searches on the person they believed to be the whistleblower [the person emailing them the bribery allegations and the sex tape] - they, according to media reports, thought it was Vivian Shi, the company's head of government affairs. At the time they never told Humphrey about the emails and sex tape. [Back story]

Despite his best efforts Humphrey was unable to find any discrepancies or wrong-doings by Vivian Shi.

It was shortly after his investigation finished that Glaxo informed him of the emails they had received [the allegations]

Something just isn't sitting right with me here.

Was the 'sex tape' merely a smoke screen?

Glaxo can now use this as a form of defence, they can say that they were being bribed and carried out their own investigation. I don't know, maybe ask the Judge for leniency or reduced sentence...maybe even try to strike a deal with the Chinese government, as they did with the US Justice of Department.

Glaxo caught wind that fraud and bribery was being committed in China. Shouldn't that have been their main priority to investigate rather than find the person 'spilling the beans'?

In any event, why go to a private investigator in the first place? Wasn't this a job for the Chinese fraud squad?

Or did Glaxo, as I suspect, want to keep this in-house?

The final slide [Slide 3] in his presentation is quite revealing.

"Almost one year's business was lost but the firm avoided a public scandal or prosecution"

Did Glaxo really hire Humphrey to investigate Vivian Shi or were their motives to try and seek help in keeping the allegations from going public?

If Humphrey can present a slide show in 2012 that shows how a pharmaceutical company was saved from embarrassment from in-house fraud then maybe Glaxo wanted to pick Humphrey's brain on exactly how that could be achieved.

Hey, I'm just thinking out aloud here.

Bob Fiddaman.