Venezuelan opposition condemns Goldman for $2.8 billion bond deal

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's statement that it never transacted directly with the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro when it bought $2.8 billion of bonds for pennies on the dollar was dismissed by the country's opposition on Tuesday as an effort to "put lipstick on this pig."

Goldman, in a statement late Monday confirming the purchase, said its asset-management arm acquired the bonds "on the secondary market from a broker and did not interact with the Venezuelan government." read more »

British Airways IT failure: experts doubt 'power surge' claim

Data centre leaders question BA chief executive’s statement that worldwide disruption was caused by power surge

Experts have questioned British Airways’ claim that this weekend’s catastrophic IT failure was down to a “power surge”, as the company’s chief executive has claimed.

Álex Cruz, BA’s chairman and chief executive, said on Monday that the surge was “so strong that it rendered the back-up system ineffective”. But multiple data centre designers have told the Guardian that a power surge should not be able to bring down a data centre, let alone a data centre and its back-up. read more »

US fines Deutsche Bank $41 million for money laundering control lapses

The bank also agreed to improve oversight by senior management and compliance to US banking laws. The fine is the latest in a series of woes for Germany's largest bank. read more »

Brazil's J&F agrees to pay record $3.2 billion fine in leniency deal

J&F Investimentos, controlling shareholder of the globe's largest meatpacker, JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), agreed to pay a record-setting 10.3 billion real ($3.2 billion) fine for its role in corruption scandals that threaten to oust President Michel Temer, Brazilian prosecutors said.

The settlement means that Brazil's three-year sweeping graft investigations have now led to the world's two biggest leniency fines ever levied.

J&F's penalty surpasses the $8.5 billion reais that Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht agreed to pay for its role in the political graft scandal convulsing Latin America's biggest economy, prosecutors said in statement late Tuesday. read more »

As Nursing Homes Evict Patients, States Question Motives

One of those states is Maryland. Brian Frosh, the state's attorney general, says that, in Maryland, more than half of all involuntary discharges have come from just one small chain of nursing homes run by Neiswanger Management Services, or NMS Healthcare.

"Your odds of getting evicted from an NMS nursing home are about a hundred times what they are of any other nursing home in the state," says Frosh.

Maryland is now suing NMS for Medicaid fraud. The suit alleges that the company charged the state for services it didn't deliver, specifically for discharge planning. Nursing homes are supposed to make sure a resident has a safe place to go. But Frosh says that NMS sent residents with complex medical needs to homeless shelters or to unlicensed board-and-care facilities. read more »

Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility settles U.S. civil case

Agility Public Warehousing Co KSC a major Kuwaiti logistics company, has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a civil case involving allegations it overcharged for supplying food to the U.S. military from 2003 to 2010, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.

Agility was the largest supplier to the U.S. Army in the Middle East during the war in Iraq but has been banned from contracting after it was accused of defrauding the military on multibillion-dollar supply contracts. read more »

Ex-N.Y. brokerage executive pleads guilty to pension bribe scheme

A former managing director at broker-dealer Sterne Agee pleaded guilty on Tuesday to bribing a former portfolio manager at New York state's retirement fund in exchange for tens of millions of dollars' worth of business, federal prosecutors said. read more »

Deborah Kelley, 58, admitted that between 2014 and 2016, she paid bribes including entertainment, travel and lavish meals to Navnoor Kang, former director of fixed income and head of portfolio strategy at the New York State Common Retirement Fund, prosecutors said in a statement. read more »

Medicare Advantage Organization and Former Chief Operating Officer to Pay $32.5 Million to Settle False Claims Act Allegations

Freedom Health Inc., a Tampa, Florida-based provider of managed care services, and its related corporate entities (collectively “Freedom Health”), agreed to pay $31,695,593 to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by engaging in illegal schemes to maximize their payment from the government in connection with their Medicare Advantage plans, the Justice Department announced today. In addition, the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Freedom Health Siddhartha Pagidipati, has agreed to pay $750,000 to resolve his alleged role in one of these schemes.

he government alleged that Freedom Health submitted or caused others to submit unsupported diagnosis codes to CMS, which resulted in inflated reimbursements from 2008 to 2013 in connection with two of their Medicare Advantage plans operating in Florida. It also alleged that Freedom Health made material misrepresentations to CMS regarding the scope and content of its network of providers (physicians, specialists and hospitals) in its application to CMS in 2008 to expand in 2009 into new counties in Florida and in other states. The government’s settlement with Mr. Pagidipati resolves his alleged role in this latter scheme. read more »