The 45-Millisecond Ether Flash Crash Prompts Safeguard Effort

Last week’s flash crash in the ethereum digital currency prompted the venue where it happened to consider safeguards used in other markets such as stocks.

Preventing the next digital currency flash crash might depend on learning lessons from the stock market, where an infamous 2010 rout prompted a series of rule changes to safeguard investors and prevent lightning-fast losses in an increasingly automated trading environment. A system of circuit breakers that briefly halts a stock when it falls too much was put in place, later augmented by a less onerous system that prevents market makers from quoting outside certain price bands. read more »

Nashville company settles whistleblower suit for $2.7 million

A Nashville health care company has agreed to pay $2.7 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit dating back to May 2015, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office's Middle Tennessee District.

Innovative Therapies, which is owned by Ohio-based Cardinal Health and develops specialty wound care equipment, settled after allegedly pre-programming devices "with a specific number of therapy hours well below the expected life of a [durable medical equipment] device," according to the news release. "This marketing caused [durable medical equipment] suppliers to bill for the devices as [durable medical equipment] when they did not meet the standards for a durable device, resulting in the submission of false claims

The whistleblower who initially filed this case on behalf on the government will receive $488,700 as part of the settlement. read more »

Mastermind of lottery fraud admits he rigged jackpots

A man who helped write the computer code behind several U.S. lotteries, including some of its biggest, pleaded guilty Thursday to masterminding a scheme through which he rigged the winning numbers for jackpots in several states and collected millions of dollars.

Eddie Tipton, who worked for the Multi-State Lottery Association from 2003 until 2015 and was its computer information security director for his last two years there, appeared in a Des Moines courtroom, where he pleaded guilty to one count of ongoing criminal conduct and publicly acknowledged his lead role in the scheme for the first time.

"I wrote software that included code that allowed me to understand or technically predict winning numbers, and I gave those numbers to other individuals who then won the lottery and shared the winnings with me," Tipton said when asked by Judge Brad McCall to explain what he did. read more » 

U.S. Declines to Prosecute Engineering Company for Bribery

The U.S. Justice Department declined to prosecute an engineering firm on foreign-bribery charges despite finding that the company paid $1.18 million to officials in India.

The Department's decision to close its investigation of this matter is based on a number Of factors, including but not limited to: (I) COM Smith's timely, voluntary self-disclosure of the matters described above; (2) COM Smith's thorough and comprehensive investigation; (3) CDM Smith's full cooperation in this matter (including its provision of all known relevant facts about the individuals involved in or responsible for the misconduct); (4) CDM Smith's agreement to disgorge to the Department all profits it made from the illegal conduct; (5) the steps CDM Smith has taken and continues to take to enhance its compliance program and its internal accounting controls; and (6) COM Smith's full remediation, including but not limited to terminating all of the executives and employees who were involved in or directed the misconduct. read more »