Here’s a question for you: if a company wants to convince regulators that it did nothing wrong in connection with an investigation, should the company cooperate or should the company provide misleading info in hopes of throwing them off any perceived scent? The European Commission says Servier somehow made the wrong choice.

And so the EC has charged Servier and Les Laboratoires Servier with providing bad info to the agency, which is seeking evidence that drugmakers in several countries struck anticompetitive deals to stall cheaper generic versions of their own meds after patents had expired or used their dominant market positions to squeeze rivals. EU regulators have said they suspected that Servier did deals with generic rivals Krka, Lupin, Matrix, Niche Generics and Teva to thwart cheaper versions (back story).

As part of its probe, the EC recently sent questionnaires to various drugmakers, but in a statement, the regulator says it has “evidence that Servier has provided misleading and incorrect information in reply to a request for information.” If the EC finds that Servier “intentionally or negligently” provided misleading and incorrect info, the agency can impose a fine of up to 1 percent of annual sales.