For many years, strict secrecy laws in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands allowed US taxpayers a low-risk way to evade taxes. In 2008, a whistleblower from UBS provided the government with the names of thousands of UBS clients who were hiding money to lower their tax bills. This disclosure substantially increased the IRS’ already heavy case load and prompted the agency to institute an amnesty program that allowed tax evaders to avoid jail time if they agreed to pay the full amount of the taxes owed and a 20% penalty.
The United States has filed suit against Vitas Hospice Services LLC and Vitas Healthcare Corporation for the submission of false claims for hospice care. Vitas provides services in 18 states and is the largest for-profit hospice chain in the country. Medicare hospice benefits are available to patients who are terminally ill and whose life expectancy is 6 months or less.
The US DOJ announced that it is intervening in a qui tam whistleblower case under the False Claims Act against Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation. The suit alleges that from 2001- 2011, Novartis marketed Cardiovascular drugs, including Lotrel, Valturna, Starlix, Texturna, Diovan and Exforge, through a variety of “pay to play” schemes that involved kick-backs to physicians to encourage them to continue to prescribe these drugs.
The federal government accused cycling legend Lance Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service when he doped to win the Tour de France.
In a complaint filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, the government asserted that Armstrong violated the federal False Claims Act and would be “unjustly enriched” if allowed to retain the money he received from the Postal Service.
A California biotech company will pay almost $25 million to settle claims that it paid illegal kickbacks to boost prescriptions of a drug for treating anemia, the Department of Justice announced this week.
Amgen, Inc. will pay $17.8 million to the federal government and $7.
Independence Blue Cross (“IBC”) announced on April 10, 2013, that it agreed to sell 20% of IBC’s New Jersey health insurance subsidiary, AmeriHealth New Jersey, to Cooper University Health Care (“Cooper”) of Camden, NJ.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System announced yesterday that it had reported a cardiologist to federal authorities, state regulators, and patients for performing unnecessary stent procedures at a system hospital. The physician, Vidya Banka, 71, was an independent cardiologist with medical privileges at Pennsylvania Hospital (he has since given up those privileges).
On March 26, 2013, OIG issued a Special Fraud Alert regarding physician-owned distributorships (“PODs”) involved in the sale of implantable medical devices. OIG noted that a joint venture is “inherently suspect” from an Anti-Kickback perspective when it involves physician-owners who are also in the position to purchase these medical devices for use in surgical procedures.
Par Pharmaceutical Company has agreed to pay $45 million to settle civil and criminal allegations that the company launched a long term care sales force to promote Megace ES for off-label uses including weight loss in elderly patients.
Under currently existing rules, a whistleblower tipster can collect a reward of 15%-30% of proceeds brought in as a direct result of a tip. The case must involve tax evasion of at least $2 million or tax fraud by an individual making at least $200,000 a year.
