Undercover sex tape deepens GSK's China scandal

Sir Andrew Witty, the chief executive of GSK, and, until recently, the lead non-executive board member for the Department for Business, was among the top managers who received the footage from unidentified sources.

GSK authorised Mr Reilly to spend an initial £20,000 of the company’s money on hiring a private investigator, Peter Humphrey, to discover the perpetrators of the sting, believed to be part of wider attempts to expose the drugs giant to punitive action by Chinese authorities.

Mr Humphrey’s report, code-named “Project Scorpion”, failed to establish who planted a camera in Mr Reilly’s bedroom.

But his activities led to Chinese authorities launching a major probe into corruption at GSK just two months later.

Mr Humphrey also studied the emails sent by a whistleblower last January to 13 senior executives at GSK and two employees at its independent auditor, PwC.

He believed the emails, sent by a source called “gskwhistleblower”, were “totally credible”. In May this year, the Serious Fraud Office announced a formal criminal investigation into GSK’s commercial practices, as Mr Humphrey predicted.

The same month, Mr Reilly was arrested on charges of ordering his subordinates to form a massive bribery network that resulted in higher drug prices and illegal revenue of more than $150m (£88m).

GSK told the Daily Telegraph that it has “committed significant resources to find out what happened in China”, including an independent legal review. The company is also co-operating fully with the ongoing bribery investigation by Chinese authorities.

A spokesman said: “We have zero tolerance for any kind of corruption in our business and … we take action against any breaches.”

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