Former Head of Chinese Dairy Pleads Guilty [View All]

[Robbien]

Source: NYT

SHANGHAI — The former chairwoman of one of China’s biggest dairy producers pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling tainted powdered baby formula and acknowledged for the first time that the company knew of the problem months before alerting local officials to what has become one of the country’s biggest food-safety crises, according to the state-run news media.

. . .

Ms. Tian’s plea came on the first day of a trial that involves three other Sanlu executives. The court said that consumer complaints about Sanlu’s milk came in as early as December 2007. Ms. Tian said she knew the company was selling contaminated formula by May 2008, but did not report the problem to local government officials until August. Between May and September, when Sanlu stopped production, prosecutors said the company made more than 900 tons of melamine-contaminated powdered formula.

Until Wednesday, company officials had maintained that they learned of the problem only in August.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/world/asia/01milk.html?ref=asia