LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) - Chinese authorities havearrested a British contractor as part of an inquiry linked toallegations of bribery and corruption at drugmakerGlaxoSmithKline, Britain's foreign office and a sourcefamiliar the matter said on Saturday.
Earlier this week Chinese police accused GlaxoSmithKline(GSK) of bribing officials and doctors to boost sales and raisethe price of its medicines in China. They said GSK transferredup to 3 billion yuan ($489 million) to 700 travel agencies andconsultancies over six years to facilitate the bribes.
"We are aware of the arrest of the British national inShanghai in China on July 10," a British Foreign Officespokesman said. "We are providing consular assistance to thefamily."
He did not have any further details regarding the nature ofthe arrest.
However, a source familiar with the situation said thearrested man was from an international business risk advisoryfirm who had worked with the pharmaceuticals sector in China.
A spokesman for GSK, Britain's biggest drugmaker, said theman had never been an employee of GSK but declined to givefurther details.
On Friday, GSK chief executive Andrew Witty sent its head ofemerging markets and two other executives to China to addressthe crisis and help Chinese authorities get to the bottom ofallegations it has called "shameful" and which have shakenconfidence in GSK's internal procedures.
China has already detained four senior Chinese executivesand banned GSK's finance chief in China, Steve Nechelput, fromleaving the country.
Britain's Times newspaper reported on Saturday that thearrested Briton was part of a swoop in Beijing and Shanghai inthe past week which had seen at least 10 corporate intelligenceconsultants detained or arrested.
The paper, which based its report on unnamed sources, saidthe round-up extended beyond GSK to other drugmakers working inChina, and said Chinese investigators were building their caseon information from at least two insiders who had possibly beenembedded within GSK's Chinese operations since 2006.
Belgian drugmaker UCB said on Thursday its officein Shanghai had been visited by officials from the StateAdministration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) seekinginformation on compliance.
The SAIC is one of China's main three anti-trust regulatorsin charge of market supervision.
Glaxosmithkline (GSK)