Duke Whistleblower Gets More Than $33 Million

Joseph Thomas, a former Duke lab analyst, sued the university on behalf of the federal government, saying that a Duke researcher fudged data to help the university win and keep lucrative grants from two agencies, the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Because Thomas brought the original lawsuit under the False Claims Act's qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions, he stood to share in any money that was recovered from Duke. For pursuing the case on the U.S. government's behalf, he will now receive $33,750,000 from the settlement, the Justice Department said. read more »

SEC agrees to pay $50 million to whistleblowers in JPMorgan Chase settlement

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed to pay a total of $50 million to a pair of whistleblowers who provided information that helped the agency win a $267 million settlement with JPMorgan Chase over claims that the bank failed to inform wealthy clients of conflicts of interest in managing their money.

One of the informants will get $37 million, the agency said in a statement Tuesday. The SEC did not name the company involved or the people getting the awards.

In December 2015, JPMorgan agreed to pay more than $300 million to the SEC and to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. JPMorgan admitted disclosure failures from 2008 to 2013 related to two units that manage money — its securities subsidiary and its nationally chartered bank — as part of the SEC settlement. read more »

United States Files Lawsuit Against West Virginia Hospital, Its Management Company, and Its CEO Based on Kickbacks and Other Improper Payments to Physicians

The government alleges that Wheeling Hospital, which is located in Wheeling, West Virginia, violated the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, and that those violations were caused by R & V, Wheeling’s contracted management consultant, and Violi, Wheeling’s CEO.

The Stark Law prohibits a hospital from billing Medicare for services referred by physicians who have improper financial relationships with the hospital.  The Anti‑Kickback Statute prohibits offering or paying anything of value to induce the referral of items or services covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs.  The United States alleges that Wheeling’s compensation to a number of employed and contracted physicians violated these statutory prohibitions because that compensation was based on the volume or value of the physicians’ referrals or exceeded the fair market value of the physicians’ services.

The United States filed its complaint in a lawsuit filed under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act. read more » 

Whitewashing a $10 Billion Money Laundering Scandal

In just two days in February, Sweden’s oldest bank saw more than one fifth of its market value wiped out. Allegations that Swedbank AB had facilitated money laundering spooked investors who hadn’t viewed the lender’s leading market position in the Baltics as big a risk. The bank’s response to a scandal that has now engulfed a large part of Europe’s financial industry has been inadequate. Its effort to contain the damage and protect senior management is in danger of backfiring.

Amid allegations that clients moved 95 billion kronor ($10.3 billion) of suspect funds through the bank, Swedbank published a hastily commissioned review by the Forensic Risk Alliance into 50 clients that may have been responsible for about 40 billion kronor of transactions. It was improbable that the investigation would reveal much in just a few weeks. The forensic accounting group wasn’t even the bank’s first choice: it stepped in to replace EY, which Swedbank had to drop because of the accounting firm’s links with $230 billion of suspect transactions at Danske Bank A/S. read more »