Some of you may be aware of the compliance trouble Johnson & Johnson is going through with a series of product recalls due to bad manufacturing practices at several of their production sites. The US Food and Drug Administration is currently taking a close look at J&J operations.
So far there is no indication that patients got hurt due to out-of-specification products. However, the damage to the corporate image as a trusted manufacturer of safe and effective medicines is suffering badly - and so is the share price of J&J stock. Investors now filed a class-action lawsuit fundamentally alleging that either J&J managers wrongfully tried to hide the company’s compliance problems from investors or did not have appropriate risk and compliance management to start with.
Either way the incident illustrates the multiple faces of compliance and it can affect corporate value – in all its senses.
More details on the J&J case can be found here and here. For information on process driven risk and compliance management visit www.grc-lounge.com