Medical Device Legal News with Sam Bernstein: Episode 14
The Justice Insiders: FIFA Corruption Trial – Will the Feds Score Another Goal?
Rob DeConti on the Latest Guidance and Insights from the OIG at HHS
Little problems can become big ones. A failure to respond to a risk – whether it is a conflict of interest violation or a weakness in internal controls – can become even more significant depending on the size and scope of...more
The False Claims Act is a powerful enforcement tool. The Justice Department with its partner agencies are ramping up enforcement efforts. The Biden DOJ is preparing to implement an aggressive FCA program across healthcare,...more
The UK Serious Fraud Office (the “SFO”) has reached a £1.2 million civil recovery settlement with Julio Faerman, a Brazilian national linked to the sprawling “Operation Car Wash” investigation involving the Brazilian...more
Medical device maker Merit Medical Systems (“MMS”) agreed to pay $18 million to resolve allegations that the company submitted false claims to Medicare, Medicaid and TRICARE by paying kickbacks to physicians and hospitals to...more
DOJ announced a False Claims Act settlement with Universal Health (“UHS”) and related companies for $122 million for billing for medically unnecessary inpatient behavioral health services, failing to provide adequate services...more
To our bad guys, 2019 was a year flush with hope and opportunity; it ended with recidivism, more misery from Venezuela, a charlatan, an Okie who pulled a multi-million dollar fast-one on Chesapeake and, as in years past, a...more
Last Friday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) secured another trial court conviction in a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecution involving an individual. Following on the heels of the Hoskins guilty verdict, it...more
This week I have been considering the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, as was laid out in their Information. Most...more
Two charitable foundations that helped patients pay for drug co-payments settled anti-kickback charges for $6 million. The Patient Access Network Foundation (PANF) agreed to pay $4 million and Good Days agreed to pay $2...more
This week I am mining the guilty pleas of the former Unaoil Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Cyrus Ahsani, and former Chief Operations Officer (COO), Saman Ahsani, for what they might mean for Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...more
Just to repeat myself – pharmaceutical and medical device firms face extraordinary risks of enforcement under the False Claims Act. While everyone likes to write and focus on FCPA or anti-corruption risks for global drug and...more
Telemedicine permits two-way, real time interactive communication between health professionals and patients. Its recent expansion has dramatically improved patient health by providing new access to health care for rural...more
Last week, a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida indicted two former Venezuelan officials, charging them with seven counts of money laundering and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. The charges relate to...more
After a sidetrack into the ethical train wreck detailed by the SEC Cease and Desist Order re: KPMG yesterday, I am returning to the blog post series I am running based upon the New York Times (NYT) reporting by Alexandra...more
In a May 17, 2019 press report that has been widely distributed in Brazil and the United States, Brazilian Federal Prosecutor Marisa Ferrari confirmed that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department...more
On December 17, the U.S. Department of Justice, in an unprecedented application of its statutory authority under section 3730(c)(2)(A) of the False Claims Act, moved to dismiss 11 qui tam complaints pending in district courts...more
In a three-count Indictment, another Goldman Sachs employee, Roger Ng, was charged with conspiracy to violate the FCPA and money-laundering. Ng was arrested in Singapore and will presumably be transported to the US to stand...more
The 1Malaysia Development Berhad scandal (“1MDB scandal”) has been making headlines for the past few years. The turning point for US prosecutors was the cooperation of Malaysian law enforcement and the corruption allegations...more
Healthcare Management Associates (HMA) settled criminal and civil charges with the Justice Department for illegal fraud and kickback schemes. HMA billed federal government healthcare programs for inpatient services that...more
Well, add another pharmaceutical company to the FCPA healthcare “sweep.” Frankly, the term “sweep” makes it sound like a coordinated enforcement effort – instead, it is more accurate to think of it as multiple prosecutions...more
The Justice Department added to its roster of criminal FCPA defendants. Going back to 2017, it is clear that the Yates Memorandum requirements have resulted in an increase in criminal FCPA prosecutions....more
The Department of Justice finished 2017 with two significant FCPA enforcement actions, and fittingly, one was a corporate settlement and another was an individual criminal guilty plea. The Justice Department’s final FCPA...more
You know this has been a big year in FCPA enforcement when DOJ and the SEC announce two FCPA settlements during the usually sleepy week between Christmas and New Years. And what a year it has been – more to follow in my...more
On this date in 2008 George Carlin died. If you grew up in the late 1960s or early 1970s and you had anti-parental or anti-establishment inklings, which of course all teenagers do, you knew about George Carlin. In the early...more
In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below some of the most important international anti-corruption developments in the past month with links to primary...more