Following six years of extensive investigations by Greek and British authorities, one of the largest scandals of corruption in the field of the Greek National Health System (ESY) will go before the Athens 3-member Court of Appeals, Monday. The 2,168-page case, compiled by the Appeals Board in its ordinance, involves widespread grafts and bribes by “Depuy”, a subsidiary of pharmaceutical giants “Johnson & Johnson”, through a network of offshore companies, to Greek doctors in 109 public hospitals who received bribes amounting to 11.6 billion Euros, which lead to millions of Euros in damages to the Greek state. 24 suspects, some of whom are renowned Orthopaedics and executives of Depuy, as well as heads of off-shore companies, will appear before court facing charges that could result in harsh sentences, including in some cases life imprisonment. The charges include passive and active bribery, fraud, embezzling public money and laundering. The investigations revealed that orthopaedic equipment imported into Greece by Depuy were overpriced by up to 35%, with 20% going to doctors for their “preference” to the products and 15% to cover “expenses” to maintain the network of accountants and lawyers who had set up and were operating the 15 off-shore “consultant services” companies through which the money was funnelled to the end recipients. For period of six years, between 200 and 2006, 109 pubic hospitals had seen a spike in orthopaedic surgeries, with the doctors performing the operations being the beneficiaries of multiple grafts from the foreign company. According to the court files, doctors at the Thessaloniki “Ippokrateio Hospital” had received 764,101 Euros in “gifts”, while 647,665 Euros had gone to doctors at the “Kostantinopouleio-Agia Olga” Hospital and 544,150 to the Hospital of the Ioannina University. The Greek state will be a plait off in the case, claiming compensation for damages incurred.    

author: Vasiliki Kokkali