Blog posts with "whistleblower"

Listed by Forbes as number 559 of the worlds richest people, Raj Rajaratnam was worth $1.3 billion. Sadly, some of those funds may have been ill-begotten. Yesterday the US Attorneys of the Southern District of New York charged Rajaratnam with securities fraud pursuant to the insider trading portions statutes 15 U.S.C. §§ 78j(b), 78ff; 17 C.F.R. §§ 240.10b-5, and 240.10b5-2. AllegedlyRajaratnam obtained inside information from another hedge fund operator, and traded upon it, making several...

The Department of Justice has reached a $2.3 billion settlement with Pfizer for illegally marketing its anti-inflammatory drug Bextra. A common practice in the pharmaceutical industry, Pfizer representatives would advocate Bextra to doctors for untested or non-approved off-label uses. The settlement will return nearly a billion dollars to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government insurance programs.   Source: Department of Health and Human Services

Reinaldo Guerra, of Miami, Florida, pled guilty to conspiracy to commit Medicare fraud and Medicare fraud. The scheme involved in home medical equipment. Guerra operated 11 corporations that purported to supply this equipment. Through these companies, Guerra submitted about $123 million in fraudulent claims where no equipment had been prescribed or ordered by a physician. Medicare paid a total of $35 million to the companies before Guerra was caught.   Guerra is set to be sentenced November...

  The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil fraud and other charges against General Electric today for misleading investors through their preparation of financial statements (See the SEC official release). Apparently GE used deceptive accounting methods to artificially increase its earnings reports. GE has neither admitted nor denied culpability, but have agreed to pay a $50 million dollar penalty to settle the charges. The fairness of this settlement is difficult to grasp consideri...

For more background on "flash" trading, see my prior post "Not Insider Trading? Part I." Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said earlier today that an SEC ban on flash trading was "imminent." Schumer said that in a discussion he had with Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro, she personally promised him that the ban would be forthcoming. This is part of a broader investigation into questionable trading practices such as "dark pools," anonymous trading groups, and high frequenc...

An interesting issue has developed in the law of cell phone handsets, and more generally the anti-competitive practices of large national wireless carriers. The issue stems from Apple's refusal to host a Google application in the iPhone App Store. The refusal to host the Google Voice app has not only irritated iPhone users, like myself, but has attracted the attention of the FCC.   Google Voice is a unique and useful currently web-based program in development for individuals and small busine...

See if you can figure this one out: if you are extremely rich and influential, then you can receive market news before the general public, and legally trade on it. What?! The service provided to these traders, known as "flashing," allows them to view orders submitted to exchanges, like the Nasdaq, before they are actually placed on the open market. The time period to review the information before the trade is placed is very short, fractions of a second, but enough time for an automated comput...