But ValueAct, given its presence on the board and long relationship with Valeant, had to be aware of the company’s use of a mail-order pharmacy, Philidor, as a way around the efforts of pharmacies and insurance companies to sell lower-priced generic drugs instead of Valeant’s high-priced brand-name drugs. That practice has come under scrutiny and led, in large part, to Valeant’s current crisis.

Valeant declined to make Mr. Ubben available to comment. In fairness to him, he is at a disadvantage as far as defending himself publicly because most company lawyers prevent insiders from speaking out.

It is hard to see how ValueAct wouldn’t have been aware of some of Valeant’s more aggressive strategies, unless it intended to claim that it was duped by management, a claim it has yet to make. Indeed, even though ValueAct’s representative, Mason Morfit, had stepped down from the board (before returning after the crisis hit), Mr. Pearson said in a statement last fall: “Although Mason has not officially been a part of the Valeant Board for more than a year, I have continued to value his vision and guidance, and I believe his insights will be invaluable during this time.”

It was Mr. Morfit, among others on the board, who helped put in place a compensation plan for Mr. Pearson and other managers that some governance experts say may have led to Valeant’s aggressive approach, both with its use of Philidor and with its accounting practices, which have now come under scrutiny.

Mr. Pearson’s compensation plan, once heralded as a model for paying for performance, was tied directly to the success of the company’s stock price. Mr. Pearson needed to reach certain thresholds of performance to be paid or he would get nothing beyond his salary. And last year, Mr. Pearson’s salary was slashed to zero to make him even more dependent on the performance model, so he was completely focused on his incentive bonus.

The stock needed to go up at least 15 percent annually over at least three years for his bonus shares to vest. If the stock went up 45 percent, Mr. Pearson would be paid three times as much. By last summer, Mr. Pearson was worth about $3 billion on paper.