GlaxoSmithKline to pay $3 billion law settlement

It's the largest fraud settlement in U.S. history.

Drug maker GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay a whopping $3 billion to settle criminal and civil claims over some of its medications.

It's also the largest payment ever by a drug company.

The justice department accused the company of marketing some of its drugs as treatments for conditions they were not approved for.

The district attorney said the company also bribed doctors in order to get them to prescribe their medications. 

"GSK sales force bribed physicians to prescribe GSK products using every imaginable form of high-priced entertainment,” said District Attorney Carmen Ortiz. “From Hawaiian vacations, to paying doctors millions of dollars to go on speaking tours, to a European pheasant hunt, to tickets for Madonna concerts."

Under a new five-year deal with the Department of Health and Human Services, the company's sales agents will now be paid based on quality of service instead of sales targets.