Copying Documents to Support Your Claims: Make Sure You're on the Right Side of the Law
Posted 07/1/15
Copying your employer’s documents to support a lawsuit can result in a significant reward – or land you in a New Jersey jail. On June 23, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court decided State v. Saavedra (No. A-86-13, June 23, 2015), refusing to dismiss a criminal indictment against an employee who copied documents of her employer to further an employment discrimination case. On the same day, a federal court in...
-- “CHERRY-PICKING SCHEMES CAN BE EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO DETECT WITHOUT AN INVESTOR ASTUTELY NOTICING THAT SOMETHING MAY BE AMISS AND COMING TO US WITH A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE ADVISER.”
Julie M. Riewe, Co-Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Asset Management Unit commenting on the difficulty of identifying complex fraud without insider information. Click here for more.
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer TeamSEC Announces Cherry-Picking Charges Against Investment Manager – The Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against a Wisconsin-based investment advisory firm and its owner accused of improperly allocating to his personal and business accounts certain options trades that appreciated in value during the course of a trading day while allocating to his...
-- “Today’s [VMWare and Carahsoft] settlement demonstrates that … government contractors who seek to profit improperly at the expense of taxpayers face serious consequences.”
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer, head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, commenting on the $75.5 million VMWare and Carahsoft settlement. Click here for more.
Whistleblower News from the Inside - June 30, 2015
Posted 06/30/15
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer TeamVMWare and Carahsoft agree to pay $75.5m to settle whistleblower case – The settlement will resolve allegations that the companies violated the False Claims Act by misrepresenting their commercial pricing practices and overcharging the government on VMware software products and related services. DOJVA whistleblowers urge Obama to fire inspector general – A group of...
The FTC is mailing checks totaling approximately $4 million to consumers who lost money to a debt collection operation that extorted payments from them using false threats. In May 2014, the FTC settled charges against Asset Capital and Management Group, which, under various names, illegally extracted payments from consumers for credit card debt the defendants had purchased from creditors. The settlement order banned the defendants from the debt collection industry. FTC
June 29, 2015
New York announced a settlement with pharmacy Trinity Homecare LLC that returns $2.5 million to the state’s Medicaid program. A whistleblower filed a lawsuit in 2009 alleging that Trinity pushed infusion drugs, which are prescribed to manage symptoms, to hemophilia patients and presented claims to Medicaid for unneeded or excessive quantity of these drugs. The whistleblower alleged improper billing for drug deliveries, including ones that patients refused to accept and excess shipments. In at least one instance, these expensive drugs were allegedly left outside a patient’s home without signature by the patient. NY
-- “At a time that the Prime Minister is seeking international leadership on corruption, the UK can ill afford to be seen to be slow on the uptake with corruption allegations or indeed less proactive than its international partners in responding to whistleblowers."
Corruption Watch Policy Director Susan Hawley and the Chief Executive of the whistleblower charity Public Concern at Work Cathy James, in a letter to UK...
Whistleblower News from the Inside -- June 29, 2015
Posted 06/29/15
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer TeamCall for urgent UK government review of Compass Group whistleblower case -- Two prominent whistleblower advocacy groups are calling on the UK Home Secretary to conduct an urgent review of how a whistleblower’s allegations of corruption at Compass Group are being investigated, claiming UK prosecutors only became interested in the case after prompting by the FBI.
Doctors Be Warned: DOJ Steps Up Enforcement of Anti-Kickback Law Against Individual Medical Professionals
Posted 06/29/15
The Department of Justice has recovered millions of dollars from hospitals, nursing homes, pharmaceutical companies and other medical providers through civil and criminal enforcement of the Anti-Kickback Law. But the agency has begun paying increased attention to the doctors, nurses and administrative professionals on the receiving end of these bribes.
The Anti-Kickback Law (42 U.S.C. § 1320a-7b) makes it...