In 2003 Jean-Pierre Garnier, the chief executive at the time of GlaxoSmithKline, became the first boss to lose a shareholder vote under the say-on-pay rules adopted in Britain a year earlier.

Lawyers representing women suing the manufacturer of Seroxat, GlaxoSmithKline, say the British company knew or should have known about the birth defects more than 10 years ago.

Others have gone a bit further, as Britain's GlaxoSmithKline did with its recent acquisition of a share in Aspen, an African firm specialising in branded generics.