GPC Market Access

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

GPC Market Access Group Ltd was a Brussels-based PR and government lobbying firm and the centre of the 'cash-for-access' LobbyGate scandal. Its employee, Derek Draper, hit the headlines in 1998 for allegedly offering companies access to high-level cabinet ministers.

At the time, GPC was owned by Countrywide Porter Novelli (part of the Omnicom Group). GPC's parent company, GPC International, merged with Omnicom's Fleishman-Hillard International Communications in 2001, and now operates as the Fleishman-Hillard public affairs brand outside the United States.

Subsidiaries

It had a Scottish office known as GPC Market Access Scotland, subsequently GPC Scotland.

Clients

• SmithKline Beecham
• Pfizer
• Novartis

Former Staff

• Derek Draper
• Michael Craven
• David Earnshaw
• Louise Harvey

Resources, Notes

External Resources

• "Fresh questions in lobbyist row ", BBC, July 11, 1998.
• HM Government, Answers to Questions, Hansard, 13 July 1998.
• Fleishman-Hillard International Communications, GPC International joins Fleishman-Hillard family of companies (news release), January 23, 2001