States Clash With Cities Over Potential Opioids Settlement Payouts

As lawyers for cities and counties push a plan for a nationwide settlement of opioid lawsuits, states push back, saying they should lead the way.

Over the last 18 months, progress toward a settlement in the massive federal opioid litigation has stalled, even as the costs of the crisis continue to mount.

Now, an inventive plan to jump-start negotiations, recently put forth by lawyers for the nearly 2,000 cities and counties that have brought cases, is facing attacks from an unlikely source. Pushback that could torpedo it is coming less from the corporate defendants than from the localities’ uneasy allies: the states.

It is a struggle over power, politics and money. And in an arena filled with outsize egos, the fight is also very much about who will get to claim credit for resolving a public health crisis that has killed more than 200,000 people since 1999 and sunk many more into debilitating addiction. read more »

How Trump’s Political Appointees Overruled Tougher Settlements With Big Banks

After talks with well-connected lawyers for Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, senior Justice Department officials in Washington last year told career prosecutors who’d been investigating the banks’ misdeeds to settle for less than they wanted.

Since Donald Trump’s election, federal white-collar enforcement has taken a big hit. Fines and settlements against corporations have plummeted. Prosecutions of individuals are falling to record lows.

But just how these fines and settlements came to be slashed is less well understood. Two settlements with giant banks over financial crisis-era misdeeds provide a window into how the Trump administration has eased up on corporate wrongdoers. read more »

Diversicare Reaches Tentative $9.5M Agreement to Settle DOJ Investigation

Diversicare Healthcare Services on Monday announced that it has reached a tentative agreement to settle an investigation into its therapy practices and other issues that had long served as a drag on its operations.

Diversicare expects to enter into a five-year payment plan with the federal government, with an initial payment of $500,000. A corporate integrity agreement is also likely once the False Claims Act case wraps. read more »