Some interesting legal tidbits to mention today. Let’s take a look…

• Global insulin giant Novo Nordisk said today that it is paying more than $18M to settle a U.S. probe of kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime. Novo said in an SEC filing that it paid kickbacks to an Iraqi ministry to secure business providing medicines under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program from 2000 to 2003, which made $4.3M for Novo. The FDA claims that Novo was aware of the payments, which were prohibited by the program, and later tried to conceal the transactions by booking the payments as legitimate commissions. Bloomberg reports that Novo spokesman Mike Rulis was not available for comment. [Bloomberg]

• In ongoing Pfizer news, the company’s battle regarding a botched trial in Nigeria some ten years on keeps going. West Haven, CT Superior Court Judge Angela C. Robinson has signed an application by attorney Richard Altschuler, ordering Pfizer to a hearing for allegations that company representatives are circumventing attorneys for Nigerian children who died after an experimental drug test.

Altschuler has been battling the lawsuit for seven years now. The lawsuit claims that Nigerian children were given the Pfizer drug Trovan in a Nigerian hospital during a 1996 meningitis epidemic. According to Altschuler, up to 34 children died during the trial, and 20 others were severely disabled. Pfizer claims that the clinical trial helped save lives and was conducted properly, insisting the deaths were a result of diseases the children already contracted before being administered the drug.

The hearing is scheduled for June 1st. [TradingMarkets]

Image from legaljuice

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