PARIS (Satrapia) — Sanofi, the biggest French pharmaceutical company, has accepted to pay more than $25 mln to resolve charges that its Kazakh and Middle East subsidiaries made corrupt payments to win business, the SEC reports. The agreement finally puts an end to the investigation of possible violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The agreement concerns the investigation by the SEC and the US Department of Justice into certain local activities outside the United States and France, namely in Kazakhstan, in Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Yemen, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Territories, between 2006 and 2015. As part of the settlement, Sanofi neither admits nor denies any wrongdoing..

In a separate statement, Sanofi confirmed that it will pay $25.2 mln and agreed to a two-year period of self-reporting on the effectiveness of its enhanced internal controls and anti-bribery and corruption compliance programme.

It said that Sanofi used distributors in Kazakhstan as part of a kickback scheme, “to generate funds from which bribes were paid to officials to ensure that Sanofi was awarded tenders at public institutions”.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, the SEC order said that Sanofi used “pay-to-prescribe” schemes in order to induce healthcare providers to increase their prescriptions of Sanofi products.

As announced on March 7, 2018 in Sanofi’s Annual Report (Reference Document and 20-F form), the US Department of Justice also closed its investigation and announced its decision not to engage prosecution.