Teva Pharmaceutical under US scanner for bribing officials in Latin America

The world's biggest generic-drug maker, Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, is being investigated by the US securities regulator over violations of a US anti-bribery law.

The Tel-Aviv-based company said in a last week filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that in July it had received a subpoena from the SEC regulator asking to produce documents regarding allegations on bribing officials in Latin America,

"These matters are in their early stages and no conclusion can be drawn at this time as to any likely outcomes," Teva said in the filing.

Teva said that apart from cooperating with the US government on the probe, it has hired an independent counsel to assist in its own internal investigation into its certain business practice in Latin America.

Teva is the latest drug company to come under the scanner of the US regulators, who have since the past three years been conducting an investigation into the pharmaceutical industry practices of  offering bribes to doctors in state-run hospitals for buying their brand of drugs.

Last year, US Healthcare major Johnson & Johnson agreed to a nearly $80 million settlement over US charges of allegedly paying bribes to obtain business in Greece, Iraq, Poland and Romania (see: US justice dept hauls J&J to court for paying kickbacks).