Only a big stick works.

Glaxo Smith Kline pleaded guilty to 3 criminal charges in the US and has agreed to pay $3 billion in fines. The charges involved Paxil, Wellbutrin and Avandia inviting a criminal fine of $1 billion. Apparently Glaxo illegally promoted use of Paxil, an antidepressant, in children which was an off-label use and helped to publish an article in a medical journal which misrepresented data from a clinical trial. It also failed to report heart risks with Avandia. NY Times 3 July. The remaining $2 billion was for civil settlement for marketing practices in the sale of its blockbuster asthma drug Advair and for overcharging the government. In May, Abbott Lab settled for $1.6 billion over marketing Depakote and Johnson and Johnson could pay $2 billion for off-label use of the antipsychotic drug Risperdol. However, large as they seem these fines are not that much as Avandia racked up sales of $10.4 billion, Paxil $11.6 billion and Wellbutrin $5.9 billion. In India companies regularly dare the government. Cable operators were supposed to switch to digital set top boxes in the 4 metro cities from 1 July because they were cheating both broadcasters of their share of revenue and the government of taxes by under reporting the number of subscribers they had. However, come 1 July cable operators howled that they were not ready so the date has been postponed for 4 months allowing them extra time to cheat. Millions of set top boxes sit rotting in warehouses. Banks were charging merchants 2-3% commission for every sale on debit cards, the same as charges on credit cards, although there is no risk or delay in payment on debit cards as there is with credit cards. The RBI ruled that banks should charge 0.75% on sales of up to Rs 2000 and 1% on sales above that amount but come 1 July banks pleaded for 2 more months because they had to make changes to their computer programs and agreements with merchants which is rubbish because merchants will be only too glad to pay less in commission. Vodafone does not answer emails, Tata Photon still has a policy of validity of 1 month on its internet connection, which means that if you forget to recharge by the due date you lose the unused bytes left in your account and Tata Sky suddenly increased charges on some English channels from Rs 5 to Rs 20 to force subscribers to opt for packages wherein various channels are bundled together. Bundling of channels means that subscribers pay for channels they never watch while advertisers never know the true number of viewers for every channel thus wasting enormous sums of money on commercials nobody sees. You cannot transfer your cell phone number from one part of the country to another although companies have accepted " portability " after resisting for 3 years. These policies are adopted by every company showing that they are operating as cartels and that there is no competition. Foreign companies quickly learn to cheat, something they would never do in their home countries. No doubt politicians and civil servants are raking in the moolah.