Business ethics and the daily fines
It was just a “misdemeanour” charge related to the promotion of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal for the management of dementia in elderly patients. Nothing at all for pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson really. A $2.2 billion payment to the US government will resolve the various allegations.
Reaching a plea deal with federal prosecutors, the hedge fund firm SAC Capital Advisors has agreed to plead guilty to insider trading, pay a $1.8 billion fine and end its investment advisory business. Federal officials alleged that during a decade starting around 1999, the company, which controlled $15 billion in assets at one point, “solicited nonpublic information and used it to trade stock in publicly traded companies.” TheQuartz business website notes that the fine condemns SAC’s founder Steve Cohen’s net worth will still be above $7 billion at the end of the year, which would put him 59th on the Forbes magazine list of the richest Americans, down from his current spot at 43.
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