The charges follow a four-year investigation by the serious fraud office. The maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to defraud is seven years and companies can face multi-million pounds as fines. Evidence, including boardroom meetings, shows that the companies agreed to fix the prices and divide the profits has been provided by 16 company insiders. Some of the company executives agreed to co-operate with the prosecution under a novel witness accomplice programme, the first such strategy in a large-scale fraud investigation.

Incidentally, two firms including Ranbaxy and Generics UK announced in June last year that it had agreed to compensate the NHS by paying pound 12 million and pound 4.5 million respectively, without admission of liability. Both had agreed to co-operate with the proceedings. BITTER PILL

• THE CHARGE: The company was part of a scheme to ramp up the price of penicillin and the blood-thinning drug warfarin

• WHAT THE UK SAYS: It lost more than 150 million pounds on the purchase of the drugs from 5 companies

• WHAT LIES AHEAD: Nine individuals who will be charged when they surrender their bail in the next three days include former Ranbaxy employee Anil Kumar Sharma