Whistleblower News From The Inside — August 1, 2016
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
Former Louis Berger execs face FCA suit – The government’s civil complaint alleges that the two shifted costs from contracts paid for by foreign and state governments and private entities to contracts paid for by the United States. The former CEO and CFO have already been convicted of criminal charges that they conspired to overbill USAID on reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Law360
Honeywell International and Georgia Power will pay $29 million for cleanup work at Superfund site – The remediation of the LCP Chemicals Superfund Site is now in its third decade. It had been the site of a petroleum refinery, an electric power generation facility and various manufacturing operations, all leading to contamination of soil, groundwater, surface water and sediment. DOJ
Rolls-Royce investigated in bribery scheme across 7 Asian countries – The company, which has already paid 12 million euros as part of the settlement of a South Korean corruption case, is facing continued investigations by German prosecutors. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has also opened a probe of “matters of concern” involving possible bribery in China and Indonesia. Bloomberg
“America’s Global Corruption Crusade” – The NY Times editorial board applauds DOJ efforts to combat corruption outside US borders, highlighting the Dept.’s civil complaint against associates of Malaysia’s prime minister for allegedly stealing $3 billion from the government’s investment fund. NYT
NY doctor convicted of multimillion dollar health care fraud – Syed Ahmed billed Medicare more than $25 million for incision-and-drainage and wound debridement surgeries he never performed. DOJ
Israeli web-based firms ordered to pay $4.6 million for unlawful off-exchange binary options trading – Vault Options and Global Trader 365 were found to have violated the Commodity Exchange Act’s ban on off-exchange options trading and off-exchange swaps trading. Binary options are financial products that allow customers to predict whether the price of a certain commodity, index or foreign currency “asset” will go “up” or “down” at a future date and/or time. CFTC
Latam Airlines settles FCPA charges for $12.5 million – The Chilean airline group was charged with entering into a phony consulting agreement in order to funnel bribes to Argentinian labor unions in exchange for an agreement to accept lower wages. Bloomberg