Although bribery is common in China, it is rare for foreign-born executives from multinational companies to be prosecuted. In 2009, a Chinese-born Australian executive at the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto was arrested in a bribery and money-laundering case.

Some said the accusations against Mr. Reilly might cause some companies to rethink their investment in the country.

“It may be that there’s no middle ground, and that’s going to cause people to hesitate,” said Michael Li-Ming Wong, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who specializes in white-collar crime and has experience in overseas corruption investigations. The legal landscape in countries like the United States, he said, is better understood. But multinationals may find it more difficult to navigate the Chinese government. “It’s very different to be subjected to a different country’s laws, especially a country that is just not known for the rule of law, and protection of individual rights,” Mr. Wong said.

The case, which was first uncovered by the police in June, has dealt a devastating blow to Glaxo’s fast-growing business in China and has shaken up other global drug makers operating here. Many were using the same small Shanghai travel agency that the authorities said specialized in altering corporate travel expenses to pay cash bribes to doctors, hospital staff and government employees. Authorities say that 46 people have been implicated in the case.

When the case broke, many pharmaceutical executives complained privately that it was part of a Chinese government effort to control drug prices in China and punish highly profitable multinational companies. The authorities, though, have said that the big drug companies have done similar things in other countries and that the case involved extensive fraud against consumers.

Authorities in China said last summer that several of the Chinese executives had confessed to “economic crimes.” The police had also shut down the Shanghai Linjiang International Travel Agency for its role in what they called a kickback and money-laundering scheme. Documents reviewed by The New York Times showed that at least six other global pharmaceutical companies had used the same small travel agency, though it was unclear whether any wrongdoing had taken place.

In the months since the case was first announced, Glaxo has moved to repair its image. The company said in December that it would stop paying doctors to promote its products, and that it would stop providing financial support directly to doctors to attend medical conferences, a practice that is prohibited in the United States through an industry-imposed ethics code, but that still occurs in other countries.