Whistleblower News From The Inside — October 3, 2016

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Branch Banking & Trust Company to Pay $83 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Act Liability — The government alleged that between 2006 and 2014, BB&T knowingly originated and underwrote mortgage loans that did not meet requirements for FHA mortgage insurance. DOJ

Chemoil Agrees to Pay Civil Penalty of $27 Million and to Retire a Total of More Than $71 Million in Credits from Renewable Fuels Market — The United States alleged that Chemoil failed to properly account for its use of renewable fuel credits when it exported biodiesel between 2011 and 2013.  DOJ

Home Health Care Agency Ordered to Pay Over $6 Million For False Claims Made to D.C. Medicaid — Speqtrum, Inc., was found to have submitted false claims and forging patient files and employee timesheets.  Although employees had alerted Speqtrum executives to the issues, Speqtrum failed to report the conduct to Medicaid.  The damages order follows an earlier judgment on liability.  USAO-DC

Illinois Furniture Manufacturer and Exec Agree to Pay $1.525 Million to Resolve Alleged False Claims Act Liability — Ecologic, which sells furniture for student housing, was alleged to have have made false statements to avoid paying duties on wooden bedroom furniture imported from the People’s Republic of China.  The government’s action was initiated by a whistleblower complaint filed by Matthew L. Bissanti, Jr.  USAO-WDTX

Broker-Dealer Gets Three Years In Prison For Trading On Inside Information Stolen From Prominent Law Firm — The broker, Vladimir Eydelman, who was employed by Oppenheimer & Co. and Morgan Stanley, traded on material nonpublic information leaked by a clerk at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, who searched the firm’s computer systems for information on pending mergers.  Over five years, the parties netted more than $5.6 million in illicit profits.  USAO-NJ

Whistleblower in ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ case gets money and an award — Daniel Meyer, a senior intelligence official, has settled with the United States after he alleged that he was punished for disclosing that the Pentagon’s watchdog had shielded former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta from allegations that he’d leaked sensitive information to the producers of the movie Zero Dark Thirty.  Meyer also alleged that former and current DoD officials had created a discriminatory environment based on their knowledge that Meyer was gay, and through the employment of Joseph Schmitz, now a policy advisor of Donald Trump, who was alleged to have made anti-Semitic statements.  McClatchy

Bankrupt Texas billionaire strikes $198 million deal with SEC — Texas businessman Sam Wyly has agreed to pay $198.1 million to resolve claims by U.S. securities regulators that he engaged in a long-running securities fraud to hide trades in companies he controlled using offshore trusts. Fortune

Australian mining company faces additional bribery allegations — New evidence suggests that Sundance Resources may have bribed Congo’s Mines and Geology Minister as well as the country’s President. Sources allege that the bribes raise serious corruption and human rights concerns in a country blighted by oppression and graft. Sydney Morning Herald

Glaxo to pay $20 million to settle charges it paid bribes to Chinese officials —   The SEC accused GSK of violating internal controls and record-keeping provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, disguising bribes as legitimate travel, entertainment and marketing expenses. The settlement is the latest to emerge from an industrywide sweep that began in 2010. NYT