Stanley Adams (manager)

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Stanley George Adams (* 1927 in Malta as Stanislao Formosa ; † 2016) was a Maltese pharmaceutical manager and whistleblower . After he reported evidence of monopoly abuse and price fixing by his employer Hoffmann-La Roche to the European Commission in 1973 , he was prosecuted for this in Switzerland and, after lengthy proceedings, partially compensated for it by the EC. From 1985 to 1988 he was the rector of the University of St Andrews .

Whistleblower at Hoffmann-La Roche

Adams, who held a high-ranking position at Hoffmann-La Roche, had found that price agreements were made in contracts and bribes were flowing in. He then turned to the European Commission in Brussels , which guaranteed that his anonymity would be preserved . In the course of the EC competition law proceedings initiated by Adams against Hoffmann-La Roche, an official of the European Commission, probably through negligence, revealed the identity of the informant. Adams had already left the company by then and started an agricultural company in Italy . While crossing the Swiss border before the Christmas holidays, Stanley Adams was arrested by the Swiss authorities on suspicion of espionage following a report from Hoffmann-La Roche. While Adams was forbidden from any contact with his family, his wife, who in turn had been interrogated by the Swiss authorities and was accused of complicity, committed suicide. Stanley Adams, who was also refused entry to his wife's funeral, spent six months in custody before he was released on bail and left Switzerland. In Italy, he was declared bankrupt, which led to the collapse of his business there, and his passport was confiscated. Adams managed to flee to Great Britain with his three daughters, accepting a possible re-imprisonment in Italy.

In a 1976 decision, the European Commission found the anti-competitive practices reported by Stanley Adams by Hoffmann-La Roche as proven and imposed a fine on the company. Notwithstanding this, a Swiss court sentenced Adams to one year probation in his absence. Appeals against this judgment were unsuccessful, as was a case that Adams brought - belatedly - against Switzerland under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The case prompted the European Commission to step up measures to protect confidential information. Adams filed a lawsuit against the European Commission for damages from the UK, awarding him £ 500,000, of which he had to pay £ 300,000 for the cost of the trial. In a judgment, the European Court of Justice recognized the protection of informants as an essential concern of confidentiality.

Next life

In 1985, Adams was elected rector by the students of the University of St Andrews .

In 1994 he was convicted of hiring a British ex-soldier to murder his third wife so that Adams could get her £ 500,000 life insurance. The murder did not go ahead and Adams was released halfway through his ten-year sentence.

reception

In 1985 the filmmaker John Goldschmidt made a television film about Adams Fall ( A Song for Europe or A Crime of Honor ) with David Suchet in the lead role. He and Goldschmidt each won a Royal Television Society Award for the film.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Remembering whistleblower Stanley Adams - 'a proud man' who stood up for his beliefs. Retrieved October 17, 2017 .
  2. ^ A b Maurice Punch: Dirty Business - Exploring Corporate Misconduct - Analysis and Cases SAGE Publications, London / Thousand Oaks / New Delhi 1996, ISBN 0-8039-7603-8 , pp. 30-31
  3. ↑ Decision of the Commission of 9 June 1976 , printed in the Official Journal EG 1976 No. L 223, p. 27
  4. ↑ Judgment of the European Court of Justice of November 7, 1985, Case 145/83 - compilation of case law 1985, page 03539
  5. ↑ Nick Mathiason: Blowing the final whistle . In: The Observer , November 25, 2001. Retrieved September 30, 2014. 
  6. ^ Will Bennett: Whistle-blower jailed for hiring hitman to kill wife . In: The Independent , March 15, 1994. Retrieved September 24, 2012. 
personal data
SURNAME Adams, Stanley
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adams, Stanley George (full name); Formosa, Stanislao (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Maltese pharmaceutical manager and whistleblower
DATE OF BIRTH 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH in Malta
DATE OF DEATH 2016