While Ranbaxy Laboratory Ltd?s woes in USA show no signs of fading, the pharma major has got a major relief in its ongoing tussle with the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in UK with English Crown Court quashing the London-based SFO’s prosecution against Ranbaxy’s subsidiary in UK. The court also declined an application by the SFO for permission to appeal to the English Court of Appeal, said a Ranbaxy statement on Tuesday.
However, the SFO retains a right to appeal to the Court of Appeal directly. In a statement issued subsequently Ranbaxy welcomed the decision of the English Crown Court. The case was a follow up of SFO?s criminal charges in mid-2006 against Ranbaxy’s UK subsidiary and four other firms for colluding in fixing prices in medical supplies to the National Health Service (NHS) between 1996 and 2000. Four other companies implicated and charged for colluding to keep prices high are Goldshield Group, Kent Pharmaceuticals, Norton Healthcare and Generics (UK). The SFO’s investigations, named Operation Holbein, was dubbed as one of its biggest ever cases, involving up to 150 investigators in which the government department raided six firms in 2002.
According to reports, in 2005, Ranbaxy and the UK Department of Health had announced an out of court settlement according to which the Indian major paid the NHS around Rs 38.5 crore without admission of liability.
The drugs involved in the alleged price fixing scheme include warfarin, ranitidine, and many penicillin-based antibiotics. Although the sums involved in this case are? not known clearly, reportedly a parallel investigation by the NHS counterfraud services has led to a civil suit against seven manufacturers, who are alleged to have defrauded the NHS of $ 265 million.