Swiss Prosecutors in Touch Over Novartis Payments to Michael Cohen
May 15 2018 - 7:15AM
Dow Jones News
By Donato Paolo Mancini
The Swiss attorney general's office and the Basel prosecutor's
office are in touch with each other over Novartis AG's (NOVN.EB)
payments to Michael Cohen's company, Essential Consultants LLC,
both offices confirmed separately Tuesday.
The Attorney General's office in Bern said it has taken note of
media coverage regarding the payments, and that it wasn't
conducting any criminal proceedings in this context, but it
declined to say whether it was considering bringing charges or
whether it was aware of any payments prior to news of the payments
last week.
Bloomberg and the Financial Times have reported separately that
the Swiss prosecutors were in contact over the payments.
Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan said last week that the company
had "made a mistake" in agreeing to pay Mr. Cohen, President Donald
Trump's personal attorney, $1.2 million for insight into
health-care policy through Essential Consultants.
The same company was used by Mr. Cohen to direct $130,000 last
October to a former adult-film actress, known as Stormy Daniels, to
prevent her from discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr.
Trump. Mr. Trump denies the sexual encounter.
Novartis said last week it entered into the one-year agreement
shortly after the election of Mr. Trump and that the agreement
expired in February.
Novartis has said the arrangement was entered under a different
chief executive and that payments could not be interrupted because
of the nature of the deal, even if it had become clear that Mr.
Cohen couldn't be effective in his consultancy on health-care
policy matters.
Write to Donato Paolo Mancini at
donatopaolo.mancini@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 15, 2018 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)
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