When a Chinese court hit British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline Plc. in September with the country’s largest-ever fine, $490 million, for bribing doctors, it was among the most dramatic signs yet of China’s recent crackdown on corporate corruption.
China’s corporate antibribery codes, incorporated in the Counter Unfair Competition Law, were enacted in 1993, but have been little used in the past two decades. Now, however, that law is starting to be deployed. “The Chinese regulators are learning from their U.S. counterparts,” says Todd Liao, a Shanghai partner at Dentons. “They will continue to increase the intensity and frequency of enforcement.”
