In 1973, Stanley George Adams, a senior executive at Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche, found documents indicating that the company was coordinating to fix vitamin prices and artificially inflate them. Adams gave the documents to the European Economic Community’s competition authorities, relying on Switzerland’s free-trade agreement with the EEC despite Switzerland not being an EEC member. The disclosure implicated a major pharmaceutical supplier in conduct that undermined competition and raised prices for customers.
The EEC failed to protect Adams’s identity and passed documents bearing his name to Hoffmann-La Roche. Swiss authorities subsequently arrested and charged him with industrial espionage and theft; his wife was told he faced up to 20 years in prison and later died by suicide. Adams ultimately served six months in a Swiss prison before fleeing to the United Kingdom. After a campaign supported by Labour MPs including John Prescott, the EEC agreed in 1985 to pay him £200,000—about 40% of his total costs—while the episode became a landmark example of the personal danger created when competition regulators mishandle whistleblower confidentiality.
