Novartis CEO tells employees 'we made a mistake' in making deal with Trump lawyer Michael Cohen

[mobeau69]

Source: CNBC

Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan told employees in an internal memo Thursday that "yesterday was not a good day" for the company, after the pharmaceutical giant revealed that it paid $1.2 million to President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.

Narasimhan said "we made a mistake" in entering a contract in February 2017 with Cohen through his company, Essential Consultants, for guidance "as to how the Trump administration might approach certain US healthcare policy matters."

"As a consequence, [we] are being criticized by a world that expects more from us," Narasimhan said in the internal email, which was obtained by CNBC.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/we-made-a-mistake-novartis-ceo-tells-employees.html

---

We got caught.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Beautiful, isn't it? Thank you. n/t

[bucolic_frolic]

2. CYA PR Stunt

If everything had gone according to plan he'd never say a word about it

and he must have expected some serious lobbying ... those were hefty amounts, I read, compared to their ordinary lobbyists

[BumRushDaShow]

3. And their "alibi" is that... "Well... it's the old CEO who left who did this so..."

[unblock]

4. *yesterday* was not a good day? typical. the day you got exposed was the bad day. i see.

personally, i would think the day you bribed the president of the united states to the tune of $1.2 million was the bad day, but hey, that's just me.

[Hav]

5. Sometimes it's better not to say anything

This sounds awful. What's the rate for Cohen's services? How much work was put in by him to warrant a 1.2 million bill for "guidance"? What does that even mean? It sounds so shady. It's strange that the company thought that such a statement would make the people think: "Oh yeah, the 1.2 million make sense now."

[mobeau69]

6. Smells like a stinking swamp.

FU, Dotard.

[elmac]

7. I worked for Novartis back in the 90's

I don't think they would have pulled this crap back then. We do live in a very corrupted era.

[matt819]

8. Mistake

We call it bribery. Potaytos potahtos

[Maven]

9. Um, but aren't they under investigation for bribery in Korea and Greece too?

It seems like this is less of a misstep, and more of a company tradition that was brought stateside, now that we have our very own mob "president".

[Corgigal]

10. We made a mistake

We got caught, but enjoy your free lunch today.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

11. Just a mistake

Don't mind us