On 27th December, 2024, the 10th issue of ‘Criminal Case Thinking and Debating’ series of lectures of Criminal Department 3 of King&Capital Law Firm was successfully held, and the theme of this seminar was ‘Criminal Law Risks and Key Points of Defending in the Field of Medical and Pharmaceuticals’.

This activity was presented by Qi Xiaoling, senior partner of King&Capital Law Firm, and hosted by Ma Lixi, this activity took the form of combination of offline lectures and online live broadcasting, with a number of lawyers attending the meeting and more than 500 people listening to it online.

Activity scene

Qi Xiaoling is a senior partner of Beijing King&Capital Law Firm, a doctor of criminal law from Renmin University of China, and a postdoctoral fellow in criminal law from Beijing Normal University. Qi Xiaoling not only has profound theoretical knowledge of criminal law, but also has accumulated a lot of practical experience in the field of practice. This training aims to enhance the criminal defence lawyers' ability to identify criminal risks in specialised areas and their ability to handle cases in a refined manner.

Qi Xiaoling

At the beginning of the lecture, Qi Xiaoling introduced the background of corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, which has been issued by the Commission for Discipline Inspection many times in the past two years, and suggested that with the anti-corruption entering into a high-pressure situation, hospitals, pharmaceutical enterprises, medical insurance, drug supervision, municipal supervision and other departments and their practitioners have become a high-risk group in terms of criminal risk, so how to identify and prevent the criminal risk in the field of medical and pharmaceutical services and how to defend them effectively have become a matter of widespread concern.

Qi Xiaoling combined with the characteristics of the pharmaceutical industry, from the commercial bribery, drug safety, medical behaviour, medical insurance fraud four aspects of crime and non-crime, this crime and that crime in-depth explanation.

In terms of the criminal risk of commercial bribery, Qi Xiaoling introduced the unique scope of criminal subjects (including natural persons and units) of bribery offences in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, starting from typical cases. By revealing that pharmaceutical enterprises and their employees have quietly changed from traditional benefit transfer mode to more hidden new commercial bribery methods under the background of anti-corruption, she warns that pharmaceutical enterprises should try to avoid the risk of commercial bribery, with a view to providing useful references for the compliant management and sound development of pharmaceutical enterprises.

In the field of drug safety, Qi Xiaoling started from the definition of fake and substandard drugs in Article 98 of the Drug Administration Law, suggesting the old and new changes in the legal standards for the identification of fake and substandard drugs. And through typical cases, she vividly reveals the difference and misunderstanding between the offence of producing and selling counterfeit drugs and the offence of producing and selling substandard drugs, as well as the difference and misunderstanding between these two offences and the offence of producing and selling counterfeit and substandard products in terms of conviction and sentencing.

In the field of medical crimes, Qi Xiaoling focuses on the constituent elements of the crimes of illegal practice of medicine and medical malpractice, and clarifies the boundaries of the two crimes through typical cases, and explains the key points and strategies of misdemeanour or innocence defence from the perspectives of the criminal subject and the mode of behaviour, so as to promote the effective application of the principle of appropriateness of punishment and responsibility and to advance the fairness of individual cases.

In terms of the criminal risk of medical insurance fraud, Qi Xiaoling reminded the employees of pharmaceutical enterprises and the public that ‘strengthening the supervision of medical insurance fund and maintaining the high-pressure situation of combating fraud and insurance fraud’ is the key supervisory direction of the corrective work in the year of 2024. Accompanied by the first round of the national health insurance flight inspection work to start, fraud and insurance fraud offences are bound to surface one after another, multinational pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca company in many parts of the country on behalf of a series of fraudulent insurance case is triggered by the industry vibration. How to plug the loopholes in the system, prevent fraud risk, maintain corporate reputation has become an important issue that pharmaceutical companies must face.

In the end, Qi Xiaoling stressed that there are many crimes involved in medical and pharmaceutical criminal offences, and the characteristics of the industry are distinctive, which requires a high level of theoretical reserves and practical experience, and is worth studying in depth.

Ma Lixi

At the end of the lecture, the attorneys present had a warm discussion on the content of the lecture, and actively shared their experiences in criminal defence work.

At the end of the activity, the host, Ma Lixi, expects lawyers to continue to pay attention to the ‘criminal defence’ activities of the Criminal Department, actively participate in, share experience, and exchange ideas, and jointly practice the ‘pursuit of excellence, and not to live up to the promise of a thousand gold’.

Follow-up activities:

The series of activities of ‘criminal case think and defend’ is a column specially set up by the Criminal Department of King&Capital Law Firm to strengthen internal communication, improve the practical ability of lawyers in criminal defence, and enhance the influence of the firm's criminal defence brand. The column aims to promote the King&Capital head office and branch offices, the firm and outside the counterparts, experts and scholars, the exchange and cooperation between the departments within the firm. The ‘Criminal Defence Talk’ activity will be held once a month, and the next activity will continue to invite professionals to share and discuss.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)