Stanley Adams (whistleblower)

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Stanley Adams (born c1927) is a former pharmaceutical company executive and corporate whistleblower, whose case was a cause-celebre in the 1970s.

The Malta-born Adams was a senior executive with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-LaRoche when in 1973 he discovered documents which indicated that the company was involved in price-fixing to artificially inflate the price of vitamins. He passed on the documents to the competition commission of the European Economic Community, aware that Switzerland, while not part of the EEC, had a free trade agreement with it.

The EEC failed to keep his name confidential during its investigation, passing documents containing Adams' name to Hoffman La Roche. Adams was arrested and charged with industrial espionage and theft. He was held in solitary confinement for three months. Adams' wife was told that he faced a 20-year jail term for industrial espionage. She committed suicide. In the end, Adams served six months in a Swiss prison. When released, he fled to the United Kingdom and, with the assistance of a number of Labour Party MPs, notably John Prescott, later deputy party leader, he attempted to recover compensation from both the Swiss government and the European union. In 1985 the European Union agreed to pay Adams £200,000, about 40% of his total costs. He documented the saga in Roche vs Adams.

In 1985, he was elected rector of St Andrews University (a student-elected post). In 1993 he was convicted of hiring a hit-man to kill his second wife for the insurance money, and served five years in prison.

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Academic offices
Preceded by
Katherine Whitehorn		 Rector of the University of St Andrews
1985 - 1988		 Succeeded by
Nicholas Parsons