Greece’s Top Anti-Corruption Prosecutor Faces Removal
The job of Greece’s top anti-corruption prosecutor, Eleni Touloupaki, is hanging by a thread.
Touloupaki has faced an uphill battle to hold on to her position following a change in government in July of 2019, which brought a political party to power that includes several officials she was actively investigating.
Its most recent legislative maneuver may lead to her ousting.
A new bill presented to parliament on Wednesday by the Ministry of Justice attempts to abolish her office entirely, and replace it with the Financial Crime Department. Critics believe the new department will abandon a probe into whether high-ranking politicians may have received bribes from Novartis, a Swiss pharmaceutical firm that is one of the largest in the world.
Novartis reached a US$347 million settlement last summer with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act – which criminalizes foreign bribery by companies operating on U.S. soil – in which it acknowledged making illegal payments to Greek healthcare providers and officials.
But the settlement did not explicitly address what Touloupaki’s office has, in cooperation with U.S. authorities, continued to investigate since 2017: whether several high-ranking politicians, including two former Greek prime ministers, were involved in the scandal as well.
The alleged bribery allowed Novartis to boost prescription sales at inflated prices, and gain a more dominant position in the Greek healthcare market, despite the fact that Greece was, at the time, facing a severe financial crisis. It has been estimated that the scheme cost the country roughly three billion euros ($3.4 billion).
https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/13307-greece-s-top-anti-corruption-prosecutor-faces-removal
Are they trying to set up a safe haven in Greece?