“We feel we have committed no act that would make us criminally liable,” Sanofi-Aventis’s exec vp Jean-Claude Leroy told shareholders at the annual meeting in Paris. And so the drugmaker isn’t likely to face prosecution after Bristol-Myers Squibb pleaded guilty to misleading the Federal Trade Commission about a botched deal to prevent generic Plavix from becoming reality.

How does he know? There were “contacts” with the Department of Justice.

In addition to pleading guilty on Wednesday, Bristol-Myers agreed to pay a $1 million fine in connection with its failed deal with Apotex over Plavix patents. Their agreement was meant to end four years of litigation in which Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis had claimed generic Plavix would infringe its patent. Apotex, of Weston, Ontario, had argued the patent was invalid.

Source: Thomson Financial, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required)