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The government has been increasing its focus on healthcare fraud involving “quality” of care. This is an extremely difficult issue, especially for prosecutors. It is very difficult to define “quality” standards and then base civil and criminal prosecutions on violations of these standards. Healthcare providers can always walk into court
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It is always important to consider how different parts of the government handle voluntary disclosures. The FCPA enforcement initiative has been largely the result of the voluntary disclosure process, and the government continues to urge companies to disclose potential violations. Other enforcement programs follow different voluntary disclosure protocols. In the
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One of the drawbacks of a global economy is the rise in trade secret theft. In the absence of a seamless global enforcement infrastructure foreign actors have had little fear of being caught and suffering any consequences. When competition gets tough, some bad actors – foreign governments or company employees -- like
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The HHS Office of Inspector General has targeted hospitals for fraud enforcement. It is one of the OIG’s most important initiatives because of the impact it could have on reducing health care costs. The focus of the initiative is on coding practices – the reimbursement codes that hospitals use for
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In this information technology era, it is little wonder that the Obama Administration has made enforcement of data security and privacy protections a top priority. The enforcement emphasis reflects public opinion favoring strong privacy protections. People fear big government and they fear privacy intrusions through the internet and internet commerce.
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Sometimes lawyers get a bad rap. We are always accused of making things more complicated in an attempt to protect our “guild” mentality. Sometimes the criticism sticks and sometimes it does not. It really depends on the issue and the specific concerns. If you want to see self-promotion, confusion
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As if compliance officers do not have enough on their plates. I have written about this before – the risks of interfering with employees’ “protected activity” on social media. What a nightmare and what a maze of confusion! The National Labor Relations Board, which has been re-energized under the Obama
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One by one global banks are being ensnared in the LIBOR prosecution net. Late last year UBS, the Swiss banking giant, entered into a massive settlement in which it agreed to pay approximately $1.5 billion in fines and disgorgements to US, UK and Swiss regulators. The regulatory settlement included
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FCPA practitioners tend to repeat themselves. Some of the points we make need to be repeated, and some do not. Businesses are not able to react as quickly as they should in response to potential risks and possible violations. Once the Justice Department initiates an inquiry, companies very often try
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I am excited to announce the opening of The Volkov Group Law Firm, with offices in the Washington, D.C. and San Diego, California areas. My practice will continue to focus on white collar defense, corporate compliance, internal investigations, corporate governance, government relations, litigation and regulatory enforcement. My thirty years
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If you want to do business with the government, watch out – the federal government imposes a lot of strings when handing out business. Compliance officers face a wide array of requirements which can quickly turn into headaches, government investigations, threats of debarment and suspension, and even criminal prosecutions. Government contractors
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When Judge Sporkin, the father of the FCPA, assisted Senator William Proxmire in the drafting of the FCPA, he advised Senator Proxmire that a “books and records” provision was all that was needed to address the problem of foreign bribery. As Judge Sporkin has stated publicly, he thought a bribery