Intended for healthcare professionals

News

German court rules that self employed doctors are exempt from charges of bribery

BMJ 2012; 345 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.e4481 (Published 03 July 2012) Cite this as: BMJ 2012;345:e4481
  1. Annette Tuffs
  1. 1Heidelberg

A German High Court has ruled that doctors who run their own practices cannot be charged with bribery if they accept expensive gifts and favours from the drug industry in reward for prescribing their drugs.

The court had to decide about several cases of alleged bribery. In one of them, a drug firm had paid more than €10 000 (£8055; $12 622) disguised as lecture fees; in another €18 000 were directly paid for issuing drug prescriptions.

The German Medical Association backed the court’s decision because it has its own …

View Full Text

Log in

Log in through your institution

Subscribe

* For online subscription