About 30 GSK staff are under house arrest, including a handful of senior managers, after the Ministry of Public Security said that employees had 'confessed'  to bribing doctors and government officials. The ministry claims GSK is at the centre of a scheme to put up prices in three cities in China.  The ministry is quoted by the Financial Times as saying: 'Following initial questioning, the suspects have confessed. There are many suspects, the illegal behaviour continued over a long time and its scale is huge.'

Problems caused for legal team

The house arrest of the in-house counsel is posing particular problems for GSK. Communications have been cut off from GSK's head office, according to The Daily Telegraph. 'They cannot defend themselves,' one source told the newspaper. GSK's head offices in the UK appeared confused by the situation, saying that the company had no evidence of bribery or corruption among its staff. The pharmaceuticals giant has hired Jun He, a top Beijing law firm, to advise it. 

In the last 12 months two other pharma multinationals - Eli Lilly and Pfizer - have agreed settlements with their regulators in the US regarding bribery charges in China.