Oil-for-food: UK probe to cover more companies

A UK government probe into whether GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly & Co bribed the Saddam Hussein administration in Iraq may expand to other companies, the Serious Fraud Office said.

The three drugmakers said they would hand over documents related to the investigation to the United Nations-run Oil-for-Food program.

The UK inquiry, announced in February, follows a 2005 finding by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker which said more than 2,200 companies paid $1.8 billion in bribes to win Iraqi contracts.

"Any company thus far mentioned in the Volcker report is within the arc light of the investigation," said Serious Fraud Office spokesman David Jones in an interview today. "I am bound not to discuss specific names."

Lilly's UK unit "will promptly comply" with the government request for documents about its participation in the Oil-for-Food program, spokesman Phil Belt said today. The request for documents was first reported on December 29 by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper in the UK.

Glaxo, the world's second-largest drugmaker, "doesn't believe its employees or its agents knowingly engaged in wrongdoing regarding the Oil-for-Food program," spokesman Philip Thomson said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

AstraZeneca, UK's second-largest drugmaker, also will provide the requested documents, spokesman Edel McCaffrey said.

The Oil-for-Food program was created in 1996 to soften the civilian impact of sanctions following Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. It allowed Hussein to sell oil to pay for food and medicine. The Iraqi government, which selected the companies that could buy oil, demanded kickbacks, US prosecutors have said.

Glaxo, based in Brentford, England, fell 2 pence to 1,279 pence in London Stock Exchange composite trading while AstraZeneca, based in London, fell 11 pence, to 2,164 pence. Lilly, based in Indianapolis, fell 66 cents, to $53.39, at 4 pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.