Will the Theranos ‘indirect’ investor lawsuit break new legal ground?

That theory is about to undergo a critical test in a class action by indirect investors in, you guessed it, Theranos. Last month, shareholder lawyers at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd filed a motion to certify a class of more than 200 investors who plunked down money in funds that owned shares of Theranos. read more »

Whistleblower charges Walmart misled on e-commerce data in catch-up race with Amazon

A whistleblowing former employee alleges Walmart issued misleading e-commerce data in its race to catch up with retail rival Amazon.com, and then fired him in retaliation when he refused to stop complaining about the practice.

Tri Huynh, a former Walmart director of business development, charged in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the company used questionable practices to "paint an overly-optimistic picture" of its e-commerce results as it vies with Amazon for the title of world's largest retailer. read more »

Toyobo to pay $66 million in U.S. bullet-proof vest fraud case

Japan’s Toyobo Co Ltd and its U.S. subsidiary have agreed to pay $66 million to resolve claims they sold defective fiber used in bullet-proof vests bought by the United States for federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies, the Justice Department said on Thursday.

The settlement resolves allegations that Toyobo and Toyobo U.S.A. Inc, also known as Toyobo America Inc, from at least 2001 to 2005, knew that its Zylon fiber degraded quickly in normal heat and humidity and that this made bullet-proof vests containing the fiber unfit for use, the department said in a statement.

The settlement also resolves allegations in another lawsuit brought by Aaron Westrick, a former law enforcement officer who used to work at Second Chance Body Armor and is a criminal justice professor. Westrick will receive $5.78 million under whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, the statement said. read more »

Bitcoin's ‘Death Cross’ Looms as Strategist Eyes $2,800 Level

The tea leaves don’t bode well for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s 50-day moving average has dropped to the closest proximity to its 200-day moving average in nine months. Crossing below that level -- something it hasn’t done since 2015 -- signals fresh weakness to come for technical traders who would dub such a move a "death cross."

While many cryptocurrency investors don’t follow technical analysis, the digital-coin universe is drawing interest from professional traders who pay growing attention to the indicators, after the token vaulted to a record in December. read more »

Whistleblowers Sue City's Top Health Insurance Providers

Three whistleblowers representing New York City employees and retirees are suing the city’s top health insurance providers for defrauding taxpayers of more than a billion dollars.

The lawsuit unsealed in New York Supreme Court last month alleges that GHI, along with parent company EmblemHealth and their partner, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, engaged in a long-running scheme that provided inadequate healthcare to city employees and retirees — while collecting $3 billion in premiums from the city each year. The GHI-Empire plan covers 600,000 people — about 75 percent of city workers, retirees and families.

In a 63-page complaint, the plaintiffs say the companies filed false claims to overstate their expenses by an average of $55 million dollars a year between 2008 and 2014. And instead of returning that money to the city, as required under their contract, the suit says they kept it. read more »

Ex-Siemens executive pleads guilty in U.S. in Argentine bribery case

Former Siemens AG employee pleaded guilty on Thursday to U.S. charges he took part in a $100 million scheme to bribe Argentine officials to win a contract to produce national identity cards, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Eberhard Reichert, a 78-year-old German national, pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to one count of conspiring to violate the anti-bribery, internal controls and books and records provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and to commit wire fraud, the department said in a statement. read more »

5 Doctors Are Charged With Taking Kickbacks for Fentanyl Prescriptions

In March of 2013, Gordon Freedman, a doctor on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, fielded a request from a regional sales manager for the manufacturer of Subsys, a spray form of the highly addictive painkiller fentanyl.

Dr. Freedman was already a top prescriber of Subsys and also one of the company’s paid promotional speakers. Now the sales manager was telling him the company, Insys Therapeutics, would increase the amount of money it was paying him and asked that he increase the number of new patients he was prescribing Subsys.

“Got it,” Dr. Freedman replied, according to authorities. By 2014, Dr. Freedman had become one of the country’s top prescribers of the painkiller drug — and also one of the company’s highest-paid speakers.

The exchange between the doctor and Insys was detailed in a federal indictment unsealed on Friday in Manhattan, charging Dr. Freedman, of Mount Kisco, N.Y., and four other New York doctors with participating in a bribery and kickback scheme that prosecutors said sought to increase the drug company’s sales and preyed on unwitting patients. read more »

After Equifax Breach, Credit Freeze Provision Comes at a Price

Six months after the major data breach at Equifax, consumers finally have a chance to get one of the reforms they’ve been clamoring for: free credit freezes at each of the three big credit reporting bureaus.

The ability to block access to your credit report — which now costs up to $10 in certain states — was wrapped into a giant bill that would loosen regulations for banks. The Senate passed the legislation on Wednesday, but it faces an uncertain fate in the House. read more »