The indictment, which according to the filing was served in August, accuses local AstraZeneca employees of having “made allegedly improper payments to physicians” at the Institute of Oncology and Radiology of Serbia.
In the filing, the company said it has filed a number of procedural motions to dismiss the charges.
“We intend to vigorously defend the matter and have filed a number of pending preliminary procedural objections that ask the Serbian criminal court to dismiss the indictment,” Tony Jewell, an AstraZeneca spokesman, said in an email. “This case is still in preliminary stages, so we are not in a position, at this time to comment further or to predict the outcome.”
The disclosure was made when AstraZeneca reported third-quarter earnings on Oct. 27; the Financial Times reported it (sub req) at the time. Monday’s filing, the 6-K required of foreign issuers, was a bundle of press releases made by the company during October.
Last year, the director of the Institute—as well as several others, including the head of AstraZeneca’s Belgrade office—were arrested in an alleged bribery scheme that involved favoring some pharmaceutical companies’ products when purchasing cancer-treatment medicine.
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