Urgo Laboratories were sentenced to a fine of 1,125 million euros, including 625,000 suspended, for having offered gifts to pharmacists, in exchange for the abandonment of commercial discounts, we learned this Friday from a judicial source.
The Justice also ordered the confiscation of more than five million euros, which had already been seized during the investigation, Dijon prosecutor Olivier Caracotch said.
At the end of a preliminary investigation launched in June 2021, “an irregular commercial practice used between 2015 and 2021” was observed within the Health activity of Dijon-based URGO Laboratories.
More margins
The investigations established “the existence of a system consisting ultimately of the delivery of valuables or leisure objects to certain pharmacists, in exchange for the abandonment of the commercial discounts that they could grant to their pharmacies”, specifies the Prosecutor’s Office in a Press release.
This system has “allowed laboratories to retain customers with higher commercial margins and healthcare professionals to obtain personal benefits”. It contravenes the so-called “anti-gift” law passed in 1993.
The companies Laboratoires Urgo (Health branch, for the years 2015 and 2016) and Laboratoires Urgo Healthcare (from 2017 to 2021) admitted the existence of this system and “took the necessary measures to end it definitively during the investigation,” said the prosecution. .
The companies admitted to the offense and appeared on Friday at a plea hearing, at the end of which they accepted the sentences proposed by the Dijon prosecutor’s office.
Source: BFM TV
