Whistleblower News From The Inside -- July 29, 2016
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
Co-owner of medical transport company convicted of fraud – Prosecutors convict co-owner of IBT Transport, alleging the company overbilled Medicaid about $4.7 million, including billing for deceased people and for people they had not transported, and that it “billed based on the dates patients were approved for transportation, whether they rode or not, even though the route sheets showed who was transported daily.” Chicago Sun Times
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz calls Apple’s profit reporting in Ireland ‘a Fraud’ — “Here we have the largest corporation in capitalization not only in America, but in the world, bigger than GM was at its peak, and claiming that most of its profits originate from about a few hundred people working in Ireland — that’s a fraud.” Bloomberg
The Affordable Care Act strengthens fight against Medicare fraud — Obamacare provided an additional $350 million to expand the Medicare Fraud Strike Force to nine cities, from only two in 2007, and to develop advanced data and accounting systems to uncover fraud. It also toughened sentencing for Medicare fraud by clarifying that prison terms are to be based on the falsely billed amounts, not the amount actually paid out before the fraud was detected. NYT
Anglo Irish Bank: Former executives jailed over fraud — John Bowe and Willie McAteer misled depositors, lenders and investors by making the bank’s corporate deposits look larger than they were through the use of so-called circular transactions, which were designed to disguise the true state of the bank’s financial health. BBC News
South Korea indicted a top prosecutor for corruption — Jin Kyung-joon, a vice-minister level official, was indicted for allegedly receiving around $11 million in bribes from the founder of an online game company and in suspicious stock transactions over a nine-year period. WSJ
July 30 is National Whistleblower Appreciation Day – The holiday was established by a U.S. Senate resolution in order to acknowledge and commemorate the contributions of whistleblowers and to inform workers and the public about their rights to blow the whistle. Several events are taking place in celebration, including a Whistleblower Summit for Civil and Human Rights, at which an awards reception will be held to honor the establishment of the Senate and House Whistleblower Protection Caucuses, and a TEDx Wilmington Salon to discuss Whistleblowers and the First Amendment. GAP