Olympus Corp. to pay $646 million to settle kickback case

After Olympus Corp. paid to fly three doctors from a prominent California hospital to Japan for a weeklong vacation, one of the physicians thanked the company for providing them with "so much extra entertainment that we did not expect." The expense-paid trip was just one of the dozens of illegal kickbacks that the Japanese maker of endoscopes paid to American doctors and hospitals for at least five years as it sought to increase sales in its most lucrative market, according to a criminal complaint federal prosecutors released Tuesday.