Several large pharma companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, are being investigated by the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Financial Times of London.

Justice is looking at payments made by the companies for hospitality, consultants and licensing around the world to see if the companies used the money to influence the reliability of the data in clinical trials performed outside the United States.

Such payments would violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, a U.S. anti-bribery law, according to the paper.

The Times quoted sources familiar with the investigation saying that Justice was looking at all aspects of the companies dealings in non-U.S. markets, including recruiting physicians for clinical trials.

London-based GSK, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park,  told the Times that it had received inquiries from U.S. authorities.

Merck, which has a vaccine plant in Durham, as well as Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly have also disclosed being contacted by Justice and the SEC.
 

Alliance One of Morrisville and another tobacco company agreed to pay nearly $30 million to settle charges that they bribed foreign officials to get lucrative overseas tobacco sales contracts.

The companies, Universal Corp. of Richmond, Va., and Alliance One, faced civil and criminal charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department, the government said today.

"These large tobacco merchants used secret payments to improperly win business and curry favor with foreign government officials around the globe," said Christopher Conte, associated director of the SEC's enforcement division.

Alliance One is accused of bribing officials in Thailand, China, Greece, Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan. Universal was accused of bribing officials in Thailand, Malawi and Mozambique.

Matthew Martens, an assistant U.S. attorney based in Charlotte, has been named chief litigation counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to Bloomberg News, citing people who did not want to be identified before the announcement.

The SEC's chief litigator oversees lawyers who argue the cases in court.

Among the pending cases Martens could oversee are those against Countrywide Financial and an insider trading lawsuit against Raj Rajaratnam, head of the hedge fund Galleon Group.

Martens was part of the team of government lawyers who reached a $50 million settlement with Beazer Homes USA over allegations of mortgage fraud.

Political watchdog Joe Sinsheimer has been sounding the alarm regarding investment advisers who give campaign contributions to the elected officials who award contracts to manage public pensions, so he was quick to tell us about new rules to curb the practice.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted to place strict limits on those campaign contributions to no more than $350 per election, Bloomberg reports. Investment advisers and others connected to them also would be prohibited from fundraising or steering political action committee money to those officials. Violators would be prohibited from managing those pension funds for two years.

"North Carolina invests incredible power in its state treasurer, making the office sole trustee of a $60 billion pension fund," Sinsheimer said. "The SEC decision will allow those decisions to be made without the corrupting influence of campaign contributions from money managers."

He added that the new rules help "take the sting out of the state Senate's cowardly reversal" on including the state treasurer among the elected offices eligible for public financing. The provision was dropped from an omnibus ethics bill moving through the state Senate over the past two weeks.

Former state Treasurer Richard Moore took heat for receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from employees of firms doing business with the state's pension funds.

Four years ago, The Motley Fool spotted Law Enforcement Associates as a potential boon to investors — who were willing to bet against the company's fortunes.

Seth Joyner, a contributor to the investment advising web site, said the Raleigh company was making a lot of noise about hitting the big time with a new stun gun but he saw little reason to believe the hype.

He paid special attention to the company's then president, Paul Feldman, noting that when it came to investing stock in LEA, Feldman wasn't putting his money where his mouth was.

Feldman was recently ousted from the company and he is now making serious allegations of insider trading involving some of the state's top political officials, particularly state Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, who is LEA's chairman of the board.

Read Joyner's take here.