Having trashed Monsanto, forced Shell to do a u-turn on Brent Spar and the rest of the energy sector to start to take sustainable development seriously, consumers have now given one of the worst corporate offenders of all a bloody nose. The decision by 39 leading drug companies, including Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, to withdraw from their court case against the South African government today marks a humiliating climb-down for an industry that has established a reputation as a global bully. Over the last few years, the drugs industry has combined its lobbying power with the US government to threaten poor countries importing cheap copies of patented drugs with the considerable might of American trade sanctions. In theory, these countries were doing nothing wrong. Global intellectual property rules allow countries to override patent rights in the interests of public health.
Patented drugs are beyond the over-stretched health budgets of most developing countries.
The South African case was always on shaky grounds. The companies decided early on not to argue that the country's 1997 Medicines Act, which codifies the government's right to override patents, was wider than the scope of the TRIPs' safety provisions. Instead they argued that the act was in breach of South Africa's own constitution by giving ministers too much power to decide when to override patents. But, during a six-week delay in proceedings, granted to allow the drug companies more time to respond to campaigners' allegations, the industry lost the battle in the court of public opinion. However much they protested that patents are necessary to recoup the enormous investment necessary to develop new drugs, the perception was that they put their intellectual property rights before patients.