The Penalty is Fine: Eleventh Circuit Holds Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause Applies, But...
To close out 2021, the Eleventh Circuit handed down a lengthy decision on an interesting matter of first impression in the federal courts of...
Top 10 Whistleblowing and Retaliation Events Of 2021
2021 was another blockbuster year in the whistleblowing and retaliation arena. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Office of the Whistleblower has now issued in excess of $1 billion in whistleblower bounties. Meanwhile, courts continued to grapple with the parameters of the protections afforded by the whistleblower provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank and False Claims […]
Continuous Improvement of Internal Controls
Tom Fox spoke with Cristina Revelo of Affiliated Monitors, Inc about internal controls in practice inside a corporation. Defining internal controls as any process that must be executed for the company to meet their objectives, they moved on to two terms that often cause confusion: compensating controls and control override. Revelo explained that a compensating […]
Implementation Themes Found in New U.S. Anti-Corruption Strategy
Worth MacMurray of Governance & Compliance Initiatives writes that the Biden administration’s new policy has elevated corruption from a reluctantly acknowledged issue to a national security priority. He notes that the new strategy document contains recurrent themes that may signal the prioritization of substantive implementation directions. For example, the strategy singles out high-risk sectors such […]
Loan Servicer Pays Almost $8 Million for Allegedly Mishandling Military Deferments on Student Loans
Conduent Education Services LLC – a contractor that serviced student loans for lenders under the Federal Family Education Loan Program – has agreed to pay $7.9 million to resolve allegations that it submitted false claims to the Department of Education. It received a $1.4 million credit for payment under an earlier remediation plan to partially […]
Billing Medicare for Allegedly Generic Shoe Inserts Leads to $5.5 Million False Claims Act...
Foot Care Store, Inc. – d/b/a Dia-Foot – is a Florida company that makes shoe inserts intended to prevent or reduce various foot problems that commonly result from diabetes. It has agreed to pay over $5.5 million to settle allegations that it sold inserts that it claimed were custom-made for the patient’s foot, as prescribed […]
Top False Claims Act Developments
King & Spalding's latest review of top False Claims Act developments includes: the first court of appeals decision squarely holding that monetary awards in...
The ESG Outlook for 2022
For many law firms and in-house lawyers, 2021 marked the year that Environmental, Social and Governance issues stormed onto their radar. They now realize they have a leading role in making sure their legal risk and compliance ecosystem matches their organization’s stated purpose and ESG goals. This unprecedented shift is only the beginning. In the […]
New Anti-Bribery Guideline in China Raises Stakes
China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection recently released a new anti-bribery Guideline that sets out the Chinese Government’s desire to crack down on bribery in China. Norton Rose Fulbright’s Andrew Reeves and Rongxin Huang, Counsel at Shanghai Pacific Legal, identify three key takeaways: Companies and individuals will be blacklisted from doing business in China for […]
Pfizer’s Anti-Bribery Policy, a Decade After DOJ/SEC Settlement
Harry Cassin looks at the current anti-bribery policy of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which a decade ago paid $60 million to settle bribery allegations in eleven countries across Eurasia. He writes that its prohibition of facilitating payments is similar to the policies of Apple, Novartis, Microsoft, Volkswagen, Airbus, GM, and 3M, and more stringent than Coca-Cola’s […]