Last year Stryker Corp came under fire for illegal payments to U.S. doctors. This year, that might be topped. The company announced in an SEC filing last month that it is being investigated by the Department of Justice for “possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.” While not many specific details have been announced yet, this is clearly not welcome news for a company that just recovered from an unrelated scandal.
The SEC filing can be found here, however, if you don’t want to wade through that entire document, the relevant paragraph says:
In 2007 the Company disclosed that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has made an informal inquiry of the Company regarding possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in connection with the sale of medical devices in certain foreign countries. Subsequently, in 2008, the Company received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division, requesting certain documents for the period January 1, 2000 through the present in connection with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry. In 2006 the Company announced that it received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, requesting documents for the period January 2001 through the present regarding possible violations of federal criminal law, including possible violation of the antitrust laws, relating to the manufacture and sale of orthopaedic implant devices. Stryker is fully cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding these matters.
Stryker came under DOJ scrutiny earlier for unusual payments “involving consulting contracts, trips and gifts to U.S. doctors.” And, just to add a little more drama to the story, Stryker was prosecuted for the unusual payments by U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. You may recall Christie’s own little 15 minutes of fame in January after it was discovered he gave a no-bid contract to monitor a settlement between Zimmerman Holdings and the DOJ to his former boss, John Ashcroft.
As for Stryker’s possible FCPA violations, it remains to be seen what, if anything, will stem from the DOJ investigation.
