Abstract: This research investigates possible instances of influence peddling and conflict of interest in Romanian hospitals. First, it involves building a unique dataset that links hospital procurement contracts with sponsorships received from pharmaceutical firms by the doctors working in those hospitals. Preliminary conclusions suggest that procurement contracts related to sponsorships are 10-20% higher than procurement contracts not related to sponsorships. Furthermore, sponsorships increase the probability of receiving a procurement contract and sponsoring a hospital board member has a larger effect than sponsoring a regular doctor.