U.S. charges hundreds in healthcare fraud, opioid crackdown

The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday announced charges against 601 people including doctors for taking part in healthcare frauds that resulted in over $2 billion in losses and contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic in some cases.

The arrests came in dozens of unrelated prosecutions the Justice Department announced together as part of an annual healthcare fraud takedown.

The hundreds of suspects charged included 162 doctors and other suspects charged for their roles in prescribing and distributing addictive opioid painkillers.

Though many of the cases also involved a variety of schemes to fraudulently bill government healthcare programs, officials sought in the latest crackdown to emphasize their efforts to combat the nation’s opioid epidemic.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the epidemic caused more than 42,000 deaths from opioid overdoses in the United States in 2016.

While the Justice Department has been conducting investigations into some opioid manufacturers like OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP, the cases stemming from the sweep did not focus on wrongdoing by major corporations. read more »

Meet the Traders Caught up in Euribor Trial

One former Barclays Plc trader was convicted, one ex-Deutsche Bank AG executive pleaded guilty and another from that lender was acquitted of conspiring to rig Euribor, the interest rate benchmark behind trillions of dollars worth of securities. The jury couldn't reach a decision on three others.

Philippe Moryoussef was found guilty of manipulating Euribor, while Achim Kraemer was acquitted. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on Colin Bermingham, Sisse Bohart and Carlo Palombo. Deutsche Bank’s Christian Bittar pleaded guilty before the two-month trial started. Five other Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale SA traders were charged but were not extradited from Germany and France. read more »

SEC investigating if Facebook gave investors enough warning about data issue, WSJ says

The agency is reportedly looking into how much Facebook knew about Cambridge Analytica's misuse of data.

In March, it was revealed that data on 87 million Facebook users was allegedly misused by political consultancy Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 US presidentail campaign. Earlier this month, several federal agencies, including the SEC, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the Department of Justice's inquiry into the data scandal.

The SEC has requested information from Facebook in an effort to learn how much the social networking company knew about Cambridge Analytica's data use, according to the Journal. In addition, the SEC reportedly wants to learn how Facebook analyzed its risk as developers shared data with others against Facebook's policies. read more »

Abraaj Posts $188 Million Loss After Using Investor Funds

Abraaj Holdings, the Dubai-based private equity firm that’s being restructured, posted a loss of $188 million at the end of March after dipping into investors’ money to run its operations, according to a court filing by joint liquidator PwC.

In a report seen by Bloomberg News, PricewaterhouseCoopers said it has “been unable to obtain standalone annual financial statements or management accounts for the company.” It noted “multiple layers of leverage” as the company borrowed to offset a "long-running liquidity shortfall between the investment management fees and operating expenses.”

This is “an unusual practice for a structure operating in a private equity capacity,” PwC said. “It creates a highly unstable business model, sensitive to volatility and potential liquidity crises, particularly where the cost base cannot be funded by ongoing revenues,” according to the report, which was filed to a Cayman Islands court on July 11.

Deloitte and PwC were hired as the provisional liquidators of Abraaj, once one of the biggest private equity firms in the Middle East, which owes its creditors more than $1 billion. After an audit demanded by Bill Gates’s charitable foundation and others, the buyout firm ran into trouble after being accused of mingling investors’ money with its own in a health-care fund, setting in motion a series of events culminating in a voluntary liquidation filing in the Caymans last month.

Abraaj owes lenders $1.1 billion after the delayed sale of K-Electric in Pakistan forced it to dip into its health-care fund without investor consent, according to the report filed to a Cayman Islands court on July 11. It has total assets of $1 billion and the total net realizations from assets available to the provisional liquidation estate is $147.7 million, the report shows, and its limited-partnership stakes total $645.8 million. read more »