Two names that people may not have expected to see in the same sentence are Stormy Daniels and Novartis AG. But late Tuesday reports began to come in that Swiss-based Novartis had made nearly $400,000 in payments to a shell company used by Michael Cohen, the attorney who made a $130,000 payment to the adult actress for President Donald Trump.
Novartis made four payments of $99,980 to Essential Consultants, a company that has been described as a shell company that was used by Cohen to make the payment to Daniels, the adult entertainment actress that Trump reportedly had an affair with. The Novartis payments were revealed by documents released by Daniels’ lawyer, Michael Avenatti, STAT Newsreported. The Novartis payments were made between October 2017 and January 2018.
The Novartis payments are raising eyebrows as the last payment came just weeks before Novartis Chief Executive Officer Vas Narasimhan met with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Trump met with Narasimhan and other life science leaders in Europe to encourage more investment in the United States. At the time Narasimhan met with Trump in Davos, he had not yet assumed the reins of Novartis. Narasimhan took over as CEO on Feb. 1.
Novartis has not denied making the payments. In a statement released to Marketwatch the Swiss company said: “In February 2017, Novartis entered into a one-year agreement with Essential Consultants shortly after the election of President Trump,” and the deal was “focused on U.S. health-care policy matters.”
Novartis added that the arrangement with Essential Consultants, which was established by Cohen, “were consistent with the market.” Novartis also stressed in its statement that the payments to Essential Consultants were made prior to Narasimhan having taken over as CEO.
With the payments to Essential Consultants, Novartis, as well as other companies like AT&T, is now being discussed in the same breath as Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sent payments totaling $500,000 to Essential as well. With monies from Novartis going into the same company, that has perked the interest of Robert Mueller, the special investigator looking into allegations of Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Novartis, Marketwatch reported, acknowledged it has been contacted by Mueller’s team regarding the payments to Cohen’s Essential Consultants.
“Novartis cooperated fully with the special counsel’s office and provided all the information requested. Novartis considers this matter closed as to itself and is not aware of any outstanding questions regarding the agreement,” Novartis said in a statement, according to Marketwatch.
What the payments to Essential Consultants were intended for is not yet known. Novartis has agents who lobby the U.S. government and state governments on its behalf. Citing data from the Center for Responsive Politics, STAT noted that Novartis spent about $8.8 million in federal lobbying expenses last year.
The nearly $400,000 raises questions of pay-to-play scandals Novartis has been embroiled in before. In the U.S. Novartis is facing an investigation over allegations that the company hosted about 80,000 “sham” events in which the government maintains the drug company “wined and dined” doctors to prescribe the company’s cardiovascular drugs.
Overseas the company has faced multiple scandals for alleged kickback schemes. Throughout much of last year, there were allegations that company employees bribed physicians and other public officials in Greece to boost prescriptions and company sales. The investigation by the government of Greece ended in February. In November 2015 Novartis agreed to pay $390 million to settle a civil lawsuit related to the kickback payments to specialty pharmacy companies that distributed the drugs Exjade and Myfortic. Although Novartis paid the amount, they neither admitted nor denied liability. In 2016 Novartis executives in South Korea, including the former chief executive of the Korea division, Haksun Moon, were indicted for allegedly making $2 million in payments to physicians in exchange for them prescribing Novartis medications. According to reports, the monies were paid out to physicians over a five-year period, from 2011 to 2016. The company also agreed to pay $25 million in 2016 to settle charges it violated China’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company was fined for allegedly bribing healthcare providers in that country to distribute its drugs.
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