Johnson & Johnson Settles for $70 Million

WASHINGTON (CN) - Johnson & Johnson will pay $70 million to settle civil and criminal complaints that it bribed public doctors in Europe and paid kickbacks in Iraq to get business, the SEC said.

The pharmaceutical giant bribed public doctors in Greece to use its surgical implants, public doctors and hospital administrators in Poland who awarded it contracts, and public doctors in Romania to prescribe Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical products, the SEC said. And Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries paid kickbacks to Iraq to get 19 contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Program.

Johnson & Johnson will disgorge $49 million, and pay a $21 million fine to settle criminal charges from the Department of Justice.

But it doesn't admit that it did anything wrong.

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