A court in Changsha, China, has imposed a nearly half-billion-dollar fine on British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline after the firm was found guilty in a bribery probe.

Glaxo was accuse of paying bribes to doctors and hospitals in order to increase sales and raise the prices for their products. The fine is the biggest corporate penalty ever assessed in China.

The company immediately issued a statement in Mandarin that accepted the verdict and apologized to Chinese patients, doctors, hospitals, and to the Chinese government and people.

This isn’t the first time Glaxo has faced allegations of wrongdoing. In 2012, the company paid $3 billion in fines to settle an investigation in the United States about how it marketed its drugs and reported its data.

This latest judgment sends a strong signal to other multinational companies in China, which denies targeting foreign business groups as a way of helping Chinese companies compete.