Senator Chuck Grassley, a strong support of whistleblower rights indicated his disappointment with proposed IRS regulations governing that agency’s whistleblower program. He noted that the definition of “collected proceeds” needed to determine appropriate whistleblower awards is overly narrow, thereby making it harder for whistleblowers to collect. He also pointed out overly broad definitions in the regulations that discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the SEC released a report evaluating the SEC’s whistleblower program and found the program was running smoothly. The report highlighted the efficiency with which the office reviews tips, finding that it takes the staff of the Office of Market Intelligence less than a day to initially review a whistleblower complaint.
Coming on the heels of the announcement that SEC Director of Enforcement Robert Khuzami would be stepping down, the SEC appointed Vincente Martinez to run the SEC’s office of Market Intelligence, a subdivision of the Enforcement Division that harvests whistleblower tips, opens investigations and assigns cases to enforcement lawyers. Martinez served as an enforcement lawyer for eight years and was previously the assistant director of the division.
A federal lawsuit filed by prominent Delaware Valley cardiologist Nicholas L. DePace, M.D., sparked a multi-year investigation by the United States Department of Justice and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office that has resulted in New-Jersey based Cooper Health System, and Cooper University Hospital paying $12,600,000 to settle Medicare and Medicaid fraud allegations.
The Attorney General of New York announced a $2.4 million settlement with Stericycle, Inc., one of the nation’s largest medical disposal companies for overcharges top nearly 1,000 municipal entities across the state. Stericycle implemented overcharges by instituting automatic price increases without giving notice.
According to a recent article, the SEC, which was the target of lengthy criticism following several botched investigations including the Bernie Madoff scandal, has come a long way. The agency has restructured its division of enforcement, creating five specialized units with employees who have sufficient knowledge of industry segments.
Despite recently pleading guilty in a major Medicare fraud case, Amgen, the world’s largest bio-technology company, received a major gift from Congress in its “fiscal cliff” bill—a delay in Medicare price restraints on a class of drugs that includes Amgen’s profitable Sensipar pill.
U.S. District Court judge Terrence Boyle rejected a proposed settlement and deferred prosecution agreement by WakeMed Health and Hospitals, a North Carolina health system criminally charged with ripping off Medicare for at least $1.2 million. The first hospital or health system to be criminally charged with defrauding Medicare, WakeMed Health and Hospitals allegedly made false statements to Medicare in order to be reimbursed for costly inpatient stays of Medicare patients who never actually were inpatients at the hospital.
The Floyd Landis vs. Lance Armstrong FCA complaint is unsealed.
To view the complaint, please see:
http://www.pietragallo.com/library/files/landis-armstrong-usps-complaint_(2).
Michael A. Morse, chair of the national qui tam pracitce group at Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP, was quoted in an article in today’s LA Times discussing the federal whistleblower lawsuit accusing Lance Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The suit is filed by former teammate, Floyd Landis.
