CMS has issued the final rule to implement section 6402(a) of the Affordable Care Act, which relates to the obligation of providers to repay an overpayment within 60 days of identifying it, for Medicare Part A and Part B claims. CMS Rule 6037-F, as it is known, will go into effect on March 12, 2016....
There continues to be the release of significant FCPA news this year despite a report from law firm Miller & Chevalier noting that the number of resolved FCPA enforcement actions in 2015 was at its lowest level since 2006. The report looked at both SEC and DOJ investigations which resulted in penalties. All indications so far are...
Pfizer announced an agreement in principle to resolve a long running False Claims Act lawsuit against its subsidiary Wyeth for $785 million a few weeks ahead of trial. Wyeth engaged in the conduct at issue from 2001 to 2006 according to the amended complaint. Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. The United States intervened...
The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority are preparing charges against additional banks for manipulation of interest rate benchmarks. Market regulators have so far handed out billions in fines over the past four years and the worldwide investigations are expected to be...
Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing on Saturday has been the talk of the political and legal community over the past 48 hours. Justice Scalia joined the Supreme Court in 1986 after being appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Now, President Obama will have the opportunity to appoint a successor and alter the conservative majority on the Court....
The Internal Revenue Service Whistleblower program has released its annual report to Congress for Fiscal Year 2015. The office awarded just over $103 million to informants for information about tax evasion, nearly double the amount paid in FY 2013 or 2014. Since 2007, the program has now awarded more than $400 million to whistleblowers for...
Over the past few days, we’ve seen the “coco bond carnage” (Bloomberg) play out in newspaper articles as “investors are freaking out” (Business Insider) and the “[m]usic stops for buyers of bank coco debt” (Financial Times). We would be interested in hearing from potential whistleblowers – either insiders who worked at the European banks like...
In an interview on the TRACE Blog published January 26, 2016, Andrew Weissmann, Chief of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Fraud Section, discussed several aspects of its prosecution of FCPA violations. Weissmann has been in the position almost a year now and made several interesting comments. DOJ Commitment Weissmann defended the DOJ’s commitment to FCPA prosecutions even though 2015...
Bloomberg has reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the accounting of costs and sales at Boeing of two popular aircraft after a tip by an informant to the SEC whistleblower program. In the article, Bloomberg generally suggested that program accounting might allow the aerospace industry to “smooth earnings and obscure potential losses”....
Monsanto, the multinational agriculture company headquartered in the St. Louis area, has agreed to pay the Securities & Exchange Commission an $80 million penalty and retain an independent compliance consultant to resolve charges it misstated company earnings and violated accounting rules. The improper accounting centered around Roundup, an herbicide widely used by both farmers and...