“We wish we could say that the actions we have taken today in the past will lead to only legal proceedings, but sadly, it is more difficult than that to prove the existence of illegal acts,” Ivan Feshbach, Chairman of the Senior Advisory Board of Apotex, said in a statement. “It is important to note that Apotex has not been charged with any wrongdoing nor has any wrongdoing been found by any judicial authorities. Instead, the conduct of certain agents of Apotex is now being directly scrutinized by American federal investigators. This is the latest instance of a hostile attempt to harm one of Canada’s leading companies by entities connected to a particular trade association, a group of companies, and individuals who wish to promote business interests unrelated to Apotex’s interests or marketplace competition.”
Authorities had alleged that the Canadian pharmaceutical company accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from an unnamed U.S. supplier from 1999 to 2014 to not compete.
As part of the settlement, Apotex, one of Canada’s largest companies, will forfeit $100 million to the U.S. Treasury.
The company says the settlement does not directly involve Apotex and does not directly address the claims alleged by the company that it has been unfairly targeted by the FBI’s organized crime squad.
Lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan, who had been representing Apotex, said she was “pleased” with the settlement.
Apotex was founded in 1976, and employs 8,000 people at more than 50 manufacturing facilities in Canada and the United States. It employs more than 10,000 people in Canada and more than 8,000 in the United States.
The company says it sold more than $4 billion worth of drugs in the U.S. in 2017.
In a statement, Apotex said it would continue to grow, and it intends to “keep turning out new, innovative products and treating sick people better.”