"Top Five" Officers' Succession At Whitehouse Station Now Almost Complete: GC To Retire By July 2015

A relatively "new hire" rises swiftly -- to be the General Counsel of Merck -- setting a clear tone about compliance and ethics expectations, top to bottom. [To be fair -- he was already the very able GC at HP -- brought in to bust up an allegedly illicit wiretapping of directors scheme -- by some of the ranking executive officers (including another lawyer -- who had been named CEO), there.]

And so, after a one year transition period, Michael J. Holston (originally added in 2012 to shore up the "new" Merck compliance & ethics functions) will be the chief legal officer of Merck. Here is the presser:

. . . .Holston joined Merck in 2012 as the company’s chief ethics and compliance officer. He was previously general counsel for Hewlett-Packard, where his responsibilities included legal, communications, government affairs and corporate responsibility, in addition to compliance, ethics and privacy matters. Prior to that, Holston was a partner in the law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius, where he served as external counsel to Merck on a wide range of important matters, including product litigation, government investigations and compliance with healthcare laws and regulations. Earlier in his career, Holston was a prosecutor in the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia and a partner in the law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath, where he had a national litigation practice.

[Outgoing GC] Kuhlik joined Merck in 2005 as associate general counsel and played a major role in guiding the company’s VIOXX litigation as well as providing legal support to the U.S. Human Health Division. In 2007, he was appointed general counsel and assumed additional oversight of the communications and public policy functions, including the Merck Foundation. Before joining Merck, Kuhlik was general counsel of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and a partner in the law firm of Covington and Burling, where he chaired the firm’s food and drug and healthcare practice groups. He also served as Assistant to the Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice. . . .

With this, an entirely new guard is in place -- in the top five officer seats, under Chairman Frazier (come mid 2015). Now Mr. Frazier will likely really make his mark -- on his legacy at Whitehouse Station -- soon to be Kenilworth. We will be watching, with clear and unbiased eyes. I do strongly suspect Mr. Holston will in fact turn out to be a very solid leader, and improve the reputation of Merck's lawyers, worldwide, based on my experiences (in stark contrast to legacy Schering-Plough's "hack-at-it" team of lawyers).