As American Public Turned To Opioids, OxyContin’s Founder Tapped A Private Swiss Bank

Mortimer Sackler’s family’s files were among 60,000 leaked documents that make up Swiss Leaks. Here’s what we found.

By August 2005, it had been more than five decades since New York-born psychiatrist and philanthropist Mortimer Sackler helped launch Purdue Pharma.

That month, the high-rolling Sackler tapped the private Swiss branch of one of the world’s largest banks, HSBC, to open a handful of new accounts.

Sackler appeared to be on a winning streak, propelled in part by the fortune his family had amassed as the developer of the drug OxyContin.

Sackler and his brothers’ company, Purdue Pharma, had introduced OxyContin just a decade before to huge success. The opiate was filling bathroom cabinets across the United States and was already bringing in close to $2 billion in sales each year.

But the tide was turning. Just a month after the accounts were opened, U.S. federal prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the company that had made him rich. read more »

Elon Musk says $40m tweet was 'worth it' after being fined

Musk and Tesla fined $20m each for misleading investors over privatisation plans

Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla, has said the tweet that cost him and the company $20m (£16m) each in fines by the US Securities and Exchange Commission was “worth it”.

The SEC in September charged Musk, 47, with misleading investors with tweets in August that said he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and had “funding secured”. The tweets had no basis in fact, and the ensuing market chaos hurt investors, regulators claimed. read more »

United States Joins Lawsuits Against Tetra Tech EC Inc. Alleging False Claims in Connection With Shipyard Cleanup

The United States has intervened in three whistleblower cases pending in the Northern District of California against Tetra Tech EC Inc. (Tetra Tech) alleging that Tetra Tech submitted false claims to the United States Navy for radiological remediation and support services provided at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, the Justice Department announced today.  

Tetra Tech is a government contractor headquartered in Morris Plains, New Jersey. The Navy awarded contracts to Tetra Tech to test parcels of land at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard for radiation and to remediate any areas where the radiation was excessive.  The lawsuits allege that Tetra Tech misrepresented the source of soil samples it submitted for radiological testing.  The lawsuits also allege that Tetra Tech falsified data collected from radiological surveys of existing buildings at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. read more »

Danske Whistle-Blower Freed From Secrecy Clause, Bank Says

The man behind money-laundering allegations against Danske Bank A/S has been freed of his secrecy obligations, paving the way for European lawmakers to get whistle-blower testimony on one of the region’s biggest-ever dirty money scandals.

Denmark’s largest bank has “released the person in question of all contractual duties of confidentiality in relation to Danske Bank,” according to a statement sent by the Copenhagen-based lender’s spokesman Kenni Leth on Monday. read more »