Whistleblower News From The Inside -- July 18, 2016
By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team
Columbia University pays $9.5 million to settle excessive research cost reimbursement allegations — Prosecutors said that the university applied for the higher on-campus reimbursement rate even though the research was conducted at off-campus facilities. 423 National Institutes of Health grants, from June 2003 to June 2015, were involved. Modern Healthcare
Liberian ship management company indicted for environmental crimes — Aegean Shipping Management and Aegeansun Gamma were indicted by a federal grand jury in Charleston, SC, on charges stemming from falsification of records and obstruction designed to cover up overboard discharges of oily mixtures and machinery space bilge water. Marine Log
Herbalife will pay $200 million and change its business model – The settlement resolves allegations by the Federal Trade Commission that the company, which sells weight-loss products and nutritional supplements, misled its distributors by telling them they could get rich quick. The FTC alleged that the real reward came from recruiting others to join, although the phrase “pyramid scheme” was not used in the settlement. LA Times
Former execs of social service agency indicted for embezzling from the charity – Money that was supposed to be used to assist the developmentally disabled community in NY and Long Island was instead used by the Human First execs for cosmetic surgery, family vacations and spa treatments. DOJ NY AG
USAID says there has been fraud and bribery in Syrian aid response – The USAID inspector general told Congress that the most common frauds involved collusion between companies selling humanitarian supplies and staff of USAID’s local partners who accepted bribes or kickbacks in exchange for help in winning a contract. But there were also product substitutions, including replacing lentils with salt. Reuters
Was HSBC “too big to jail”? – A Congressional report examines DOJ’s 2012 settlement with the global bank. Why did a potential criminal prosecution for laundering drug money and processing transactions for sanctioned countries end with a $2 billion settlement and a deferred prosecution agreement? NYT