text: One of GlaxoSmithKline's senior executives in China has appeared on state television to publicly confess to bribery.
  By Malcolm Moore 16 July 2013 • 7:12am
  Over the past few days, the Chinese authorities have mounted an extraordinary public campaign against GSK, revealing key pieces of their evidence against the pharmaceutical giant before a police investigation has even been concluded.
  On Monday night, Liang Hong, the company's 49-year-old vice president of operations in China, appeared on one of China Central Television's (CCTV) flagship evening news programmes, presumably from his detention cell.
  "Having spent time reflecting over the past couple of days, I think the money we spent to run our business was too much," said an unshaven and dishevelled Mr Liang, dressed in a striped polo shirt.
  "All of these costs [of our bribery] were included in the price of the drugs. The money we spent running the business accounted for about 20pc to 30pc of the drug price".
  On Monday, Gao Feng, the police chief leading the investigation into GSK, said the company had funnelled more than 3 billion yuan (£323m) to doctors and health officials to persuade them to prescribe GSK drugs.
  He claimed GSK hid the corruption in its accounts by over inflating the sum paid to middlemen for services such as conferences. The extra money would then be split: some going to bribe doctors, some retained by the middlemen and some given as kickbacks to GSK executives.
  Some fair-minded commentators on the Chinese internet have called for the police to also name and shame the government officials who allegedly received GSK's largesse.
  The authorities have so far only named one of the supposed 700 middlemen involved: Shanghai Linjiang International Travel Agency. "We started working with them in 2010," said Mr Liang on television.
  Linjiang organised some ten conferences in three years, including one for 2,000 people with a budget of more than 10 million yuan, he said.
  The real number of attendees would usually be far lower, however, allowing the travel agency to cream off the difference, sometimes as much as 500,000 yuan, according to CCTV.
  "Some expenses cannot be reimbursed through GSK China. For example, the money spent on maintaining good relations with the government. So that was paid out by the Linjiang Travel Agency," he explained.
  Weng Jianyong, the head of the travel agency, also appeared on CCTV to describe his relationship with Mr Liang.
  "He (Liang Hong) would tell me that he may need to visit some experts or government officials and give them some gifts. My calculation shows that I have given Liang about 2 million yuan, around 1 to 1.2 million in cash and the other 800,000 in travel."
  According to an article on a Chinese job-hunting portal, Mr Liang is a graduate of Shenyang Pharmaceutical university, and began his career at a state-owned pharmaceutical company, before working at Wyeth. He joined GSK in December 2008.
  A spokesman for GSK said on Monday that the company was taking immediate action to review "all third party agency relationships".
  "We have put an immediate stop on the use of travel agencies that have been identified so far in this investigation and we are conducting a thorough review of all historic transactions related to travel agency use," he said.
  Meanwhile, a lawyer in Hong Kong has told Bloomberg that the Chinese government may be widening its investigation further.
  "We are aware of four pharmaceutical companies who are facing investigation by local anti-corruption units," said the lawyer, Wendy Wysong, the head of anti-corruption practice in Asia-Pacific at law firm Clifford Chance. Ms Wysong declined to identify the companies.
  Additional reporting by Adam Wu
  Twitter Icon
  Facebook Icon
  WhatsApp Icon
  Email Icon
  Comment speech bubble
  Advertisement
  More stories
  Twitter Icon
  Facebook Icon
  WhatsApp Icon
  Email Icon
  Comment speech bubble
  More from The Telegraph
  More stories
  Live Brighton vs Leeds live: Score and latest updates from Premier League
  By Greg Wilcox 27 Nov 2021, 6:41pm
  What to do if your Covid test results for travel are late or never show up
  By Nick Trend 27 Nov 2021, 6:34pm
  Live Coronavirus latest news: Boris Johnson announces new restrictions on travel and face masks to slow omicron variant
  By Phoebe Southworth 27 Nov 2021, 6:34pm
  Eric Zemmour pictured giving the finger to member of public on promotional tour
  By Justin Stares 27 Nov 2021, 6:17pm
  Saudi Arabia Grand Prix 2021: What time is the F1 race, what TV channel is it on and what are the odds?
  By Telegraph Sport 27 Nov 2021, 6:16pm
  Emma Raducanu vs Elena-Gabriela Ruse: what time is the match and how to watch the exhibition event on TV