Compliance

In the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020, the Department of Justice obtained more than $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government. More than $1.8 billion of that relates to the healthcare industry, including care providers and drug or device manufacturers. Additional tens of millions […]

Despite the challenges presented by the global COVID-19 pandemic, FCPA enforcement authorities announced several high-profile individual and corporate enforcement matters throughout 2020, including several coordinated resolutions with foreign authorities as well as new domestic players. Overall, while the number of enforcement actions was slightly down from 2019 (34 total enforcement actions, 23 of which were […]

One of the first indicators that may tip off a healthcare provider or government contractor that their organization may be the subject of a False Claims Act (FCA) investigation is contact with a government investigator.  That contact may take many forms – service of a subpoena or Civil Investigative Demand (CID), an interview of an […]

Tom Fox describes Deutsche Bank as “one of the most corrupt banking institutions around,” and uses as a case in point its recent settlement of “yet another set of corruption and illegal conduct claims” in which it “agreed to pay more than $130 million to resolve the government’s investigation into violations of the Foreign Corrupt […]

AutoGenomics of California, which formerly did business as PersonalizeDx Labs, will pay $2,538,000 to resolve allegations that it billed Medicare for molecular genetic testing for nursing home patients, which was induced by kickbacks for referrals. From 2013 to 2015, AutoGenomics agreed with a healthcare marketing firm to perform tests ordered for the firm’s clients, paying […]

While the pace of enforcement of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) dipped in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 ended up being a record-breaking year for corporate resolutions of FCPA-related cases. Bookended by two multi-billion-dollar, multi-jurisdictional settlements in the Airbus SE and Goldman Sachs cases, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and […]

In recent months, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) have announced several notable penalties for violations of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The FCPA prohibits bribery of foreign government officials and requires issuers of securities on U.S. exchanges to keep and maintain accurate books and records and […]

On January 11, 2021, the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a Management Alert raising concerns about improper payments to lenders for potentially ineligible recipients of loans under the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). The SBA OIG and Department of Treasury Do Not Pay (DNP) Business Center conducted an analysis seeking […]

On January 1, Congress passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes the Corporate Transparency Act. The CTA requires all U.S. businesses to file “beneficial ownership” information with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It is designed to ban the anonymous shell companies that criminals and certain foreign officials use to hide and move corrupt […]

OFAC reported two new enforcement actions in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. These are interesting examples of sanctions enforcement, one of which involved the first against a digital currency company. BitGo, Inc. a technology platform that provides digital asset wallet management, agreed to pay $98,830 to settle 183 apparent violations of multiple sanctions […]