Fifa’s World Cup debacle isn’t just about money – there’s horror and death too

Are you feeling it yet? The Fifa corruption fatigue? It has, after all, been seven years in the making, from the oddly homespun excesses of the whistleblower Chuck Blazer, football’s own mobility scooter Liberace; to the cold, gangsterish disdain of the Grondona-Teixeira-Leoz axis, the kind of Fifa men who would carve out your liver with an ivory-inlaid oyster knife if it meant getting a step closer to a secret six-figure TV rights access sweetener.

This week the US justice department court case sparked into life in New York. Its first few days provided such a vivid dose of toxic colour it is tempting to call Fifa’s continuing corruption debacle a gift that just keeps on giving. Except it fees like something else by now, a gift that has, frankly, given too much, but which still keeps on dishing up its shovel-loads of corruption and human weakness. This is the other thing about the World Cup. It isn’t only the money now. It’s the horror and the death too. read more »

SEC Whistleblower Program: 2017 Annual Report to Congress published

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SEC brings in $3.8bn in 2017

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) yielded $2.95bn in successful prosecutions

The US financial regulator generated a further $832m in penalties for the 2017 financial year.

The total is down on last year’s figures by $294m, alongside a decreased number of actions filed during the period, according to its annual report. read more »

Allergan’s unusual legal tactic attracts political scrutiny

“BRAZEN” and “absurd”: Allergan certainly drew a reaction from American lawmakers when it transferred its patents for Restasis, a dry-eye drug, to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe in September. Last week a congressional committee held a hearing on the deal, which, if recognised as valid, risks undermining the American patent-review system.

As entities granted sovereign status, Native American tribes enjoy legal immunity and so, Allergan hopes, can ward off challenges to the patents by rival drugmakers. The tribe, which is based in New York state, wants to reduce its reliance on revenues from its local casino. It received $14m when it acquired the patents, and will relicense them to Allergan for a yearly fee of $15m. read more »

California nursing homes to pay up to $6.9 mln to settle kickback probe

Four California nursing homes owned by Brius Management Co have agreed to pay up to $6.9 million to resolve claims their employees paid kickbacks for patient referrals and fraudulently billed government healthcare programs. read more »