Catch of the Week: Texas Hospital Exec Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Medicare Fraud
Posted 09/18/19
On Monday, a federal judge in Houston sentenced Starsky Bomer, the former CFO and COO of Atrium Medical Center and Pristine Healthcare, to ten years in prison for his role in a Medicare fraud scheme that bilked the government of $16m. Bomer was convicted by a jury in October of last year. His co-conspirator, Dr. Sohail R. Siddiqui, took a plea deal in 2017 and is serving five years in prison.
Bomer will do time...
Catch of the Week – Mallinckrodt Pays for Kickbacks on Acthar; Investigation into Copayment Subsidies Continues
Posted 09/6/19
This week, the Department of Justice announced that pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt ARD LLC had agreed to pay over $15 million to resolve allegations that it paid illegal kickbacks to physicians to induce them to prescribe Acthar.
AKS Allegations
Two whistleblower lawsuits brought under the False Claims Act against Mallinckrodt alleged that from 2009 to 2013, the pharma company, then known as Questcor,...
Fraud in Government Telehealth Programs: How to Report it Under the False Claims Act for a Whistleblower Reward
Posted 09/4/19
When patients are unable to see a doctor in person, technology can offer solutions. Telehealth or telemedicine is the provision of health services – including assessment, diagnosis, intervention, consultation, or supervision – across distance through the use of information technology. It can be especially valuable in rural areas, where specialty providers may not be available.
And its use has grown...
Deutsche Bank Pays More than $16M to Settle SEC Charges of FCPA Violations
Posted 08/30/19
Last week, the SEC announced that German-based banking giant Deutsche Bank agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle charges it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by hiring relatives of foreign officials in China and Russia to get investment banking business. See SEC Press Release. According to the SEC’s order, these so-called "referral hires" bypassed the bank's merit-based hiring process and...
Two recent decisions, one in California and the other in Texas, might be signaling a new frontier in False Claims Act (FCA) litigation: the data-driven whistleblower. Both cases are brought by the same whistleblower, Integra. Integra is not a typical whistleblower, which are generally corporate insiders or other employees of a company that is accused of defrauding the government. Instead, Integra is a corporation that...
Promising Changes to IRS Whistleblower Program – Tax Whistleblowers Now Protected Against Retaliation and Improved Communication when Reporting Tax Violations
Posted 08/21/19
Recent legislation marks a potential huge step forward for the IRS Whistleblower Program, which offers rewards of 15 to 30% of government recoveries to whistleblowers who report tax avoidance. The Taxpayer First Act (TFA), which came into force on July 1, 2019 introduced key reforms that should benefit whistleblowers reporting tax evasion and underreporting.
A few months ago, the IRS Whistleblower Office released...
This Week in Whistleblower History: National Whistleblower Day and the Creation of the Medicare and Medicaid Programs
Posted 08/2/19
This week marks the seventh year in a row that Congress has designated July 30thNational Whistleblower Day, honoring the occasion, on July 30, 1778, when the Continental Congress unanimously enacted the first whistleblower protection law in the United States.
The law was passed in response to a petition to the Continental Congress filed by a group of ten American sailors and marines, who reported that their...
How Businesses Can Use Whistleblower Reward Laws to Stop Unfair Competition
Posted 07/22/19
Most anyone can be a whistleblower. The role is not limited to the corporate insider or company employee at the meeting, on the conference call or in receipt of the email or text message where the “smoking-gun” evidence of fraud or misconduct is disclosed. Whistleblowers can be any person, or an entity, with non-public information about fraudulent conduct giving rise to a whistleblower claim. Often, businesses...
Question of the Week — Should the SEC expedite its review of whistleblower claims?
Posted 07/19/19
Good things come to those who wait—at least that’s what most experienced whistleblowers will tell you. Whether they filed a complaint in court or submitted evidence to a regulatory agency, those who have reported fraud know firsthand that the legal process can take a great deal of time. Whistleblowers often wait several years before ever seeing the proverbial fruits of their labor. So when it comes to the...
Catch of the Week — Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc.
Posted 06/28/19
Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc (“Merrill”), a commodity trading subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, agreed on June 25th to two $25 million settlements with both the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) to resolve allegations it conducted deceptive trading practices in United States commodities markets.