Whistleblower News From The Inside -- October 8, 2015

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Senate Banking Committee ranking member wants more information on big bank settlements – Sherrod Brown of Ohio has asked banks to provide details of settlement and agreements they have reached with 15 federal agencies, including DOJ and the SEC, since 2005. Brown wants information on compliance procedures, amount of legal fees paid, sanctions imposed, and any non-public agreements made with government enforcement agencies. Some lawmakers are concerned that settlements have not prevented repeated bank misbehavior.  Bloomberg and DS News

Blackstone will pay $39 million in settlement of  failure to disclose charges – The SEC announced the settlement of charges that fund advisers within the Blackstone Group failed to disclose fees and discounts it received that weren’t passed on to investors.  SEC

Serenity Hospice settles FCA qui tam suit for $2.2 million  – The Phoenix, AZ- based hospice will also be excluded from federal health programs for 5 years in resolution of allegations that it admitted patients who did not meet the requirements for hospice care. DOJ and AZCentral

Wound care center Healogics accused of billing for unnecessary treatment – Whistleblowers allege that more than half of the hyperbaric treatments the company billed to Medicare were fraudulent. Jacksonville Business Journal

Whistleblower’s claims of improper approval of medical imaging devices are rejected – The Office of Special Counsel said that they found no wrong doing in the FDA’s approval of colon-cancer and breast-cancer screening devices.  WSJ