What were the bureaucrats in for?

I haven't watched the whole movie in a very long time and I've forgotten what it is that involves those high-ranking members of British diplomacy in protecting the interests of a Swiss-Canadian pharmaceutical company for its wrongful drug tests on Kenyan citizens. The whole fight to expose the drug's harmful effects and ruin the company's reputation shouldn't have needed to involve all these British politicians unless they had a stake in there so why would they care to take part in covering up the damaging secrets?