WHISTLEBLOWER NEWS QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"The LuxLeaks revelations sped beyond Luxembourg, causing European Union regulators to expand a tax subsidy probe and propose new laws to fight corporate tax dodging, while EU lawmakers created a special committee to probe fiscal deals across the 28-nation bloc."

Stephanie Bodoni, Bloomberg

DAILY WHISTLEBLOWER HEADLINES:

FCA Penalties Set To Double, Raising Fears Of Excess Fines

By Jeff Overley, Law360

False Claims Act penalties would double under a federal regulation released this week, an increase likely to surprise some corporations and fuel arguments about constitutionally excessive punishment, attorneys say.

The regulation emerged Monday from an obscure agency called the Railroad Retirement Board, which occasionally generates FCA cases involving fraudulent benefit claims. In an interim final rule, the board became the first federal agency to adjust FCA penalties for inflation in accordance with a budget deal that Congress struck last year.

Under the rule, minimum per-claim penalties would rise to $10,781 from $5,500, and maximum per-claim penalties would rise to $21,563 from $11,000. The math is expected to be identical for other agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Justice, that are required to publish rules by July 1 and make them effective by Aug. 1. For some observers, the amounts are larger than expected. read more »

Whistleblower needed a smoke before giving up LuxLeaks data

By Stephanie Bodoni, Bloomberg

The man who uncovered secret Luxembourg deals that helped companies slash tax rates was actually looking for training documents when he stumbled upon the files on his computer at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

On the eve of his departure from the accounting firm in 2010, Antoine Deltour wasn't fully aware of what he had discovered. He copied the folder and within half an hour had about 45,000 pages detailing confidential tax agreements that became known as the LuxLeaks.

Deltour's discovery triggered the first in a wave of scandals over how thousands of international companies, including Walt Disney Co., Microsoft's Skype and PepsiCo, moved money around the globe to avoid taxes. It also landed him in trouble after PwC sued and prosecutors charged him and two other men with theft and violation of business secrets.

"I had discovered gradually the administrative practice of these deals," Deltour, 30, told a three-judge panel at his trial in Luxembourg Tuesday. "The opportunity to have stumbled over this folder led me to copy it at that moment without a clear goal in mind," knowing about the "sensitive and highly confidential nature of these files."

Deltour "felt a bit surprised by the volume of the" files and "didn't immediately do anything with this mass of information," he told the court. He felt "isolated" and "alone" and unsure of who to turn to.

Months later he was contacted by journalist Edouard Perrin, who was working on a documentary about tax practices. The pair met only once, at Deltour's home in Nancy, France, where Deltour said he needed a moment before handing over the files.

"Of course I hesitated," Deltour told the judge. "I went to smoke a cigarette on the balcony to think a few moments about this."

The resulting 2012 documentary by Perrin, who is also a defendant in the case, led to interest from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The group put the documents online in 2014, triggering the LuxLeaks scandal. 

11th Circ. Rules For HHS In Drug Dosage Medicaid Billing Suit

By Carolina Bolado, Law360

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a decision Friday that a Florida eye doctor's clinic overbilled Medicare by nearly $9 million by extracting multiple doses from a single-dose vial of medication, agreeing with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that the charges were not medically reasonable.

The appeals court rejected arguments from Dr. Salomon Melgen — who is facing criminal charges that he bribed U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J. — that the determination had to be overturned because Medicare has for years reimbursed for double-dosing other drugs, like Botox and Avastin, even though those also carry the “single-use” instruction.

The court said the “single-use” instruction for those two drugs is intended to prevent doctors from using product that has been stored past the acceptable eight-hour time frame. That is not the case with the macular degeneration drug at issue in this case, Lucentis, which has a label expressly stating that each vial should be used for just one treatment and the excess drug should be drawn into the syringe and expelled, according to the Eleventh Circuit.

Melgen's clinic Vitreo Retinal Consultants of the Palm Beaches “failed to follow the instructions regarding that use, without any support from an established medical practice that differs from the label's instructions,” the appeals court said.

Because of these distinctions between Lucentis and the other drugs, the judges said the HHS secretary's policy to treat Lucentis differently is not arbitrary or capricious. read more »