Meet the lawyer trying to pry drug pricing secrets out of Big Pharma

He has a private jet, a pedigree of winning billion-dollar settlements, and the (sometimes grudging) respect of his adversaries. Now, he wants to become pharma’s latest headache.

Class-action attorney Steve Berman is coming after a drug industry he says is “gouging” the American consumer. And his suits have the potential to crack the lid on the black box of drug pricing, shedding light on a secretive process that has sparked an escalating blame game between drug makers and the many middlemen in the US health care system.

Berman sees the drug pricing system as a Rube Goldberg machine for extracting money from patients: Pharma sets a high price for a given medication, and then promises a big, undisclosed rebate to the pharmacy benefit managers who control which drugs get covered by insurers. As prices go up, so too do the secret rebates. Berman’s conclusion: The big guys get richer, and the patients pay the price. read more »

Admiral’s illicit history with ‘Fat Leonard’ goes back 20 years, prosecutors say

The highest-ranking officer convicted so far in a colossal Navy corruption scandal began accepting a cornucopia of gifts and prostitutes from an Asian defense contractor 20 years ago and later suffered a mental breakdown when he learned authorities were making arrests in the case, new court documents allege.

Robert J. Gilbeau became the first active-duty Navy admiral ever to be convicted of a felony when he pleaded guilty last year to lying to federal investigators. He is scheduled to be sentenced next month and likely faces up to 18 months in prison.

In a plea deal last June, Gilbeau admitted to making false statements about his contacts with Leonard Glenn Francis, also known as “Fat Leonard,” a crooked defense contractor from Singapore who has pleaded guilty to bribing scores of Navy officials. At the time, Gilbeau and federal authorities revealed little about the nature and extent of his relationship with Francis.

But in documents filed last week in federal court in San Diego, prosecutors allege that Gilbeau, 56, was corrupted in 1997 when he and another Navy officer met Francis during a port visit to the Indonesian island of Bali and succumbed to the contractor’s offer of free hotel rooms, lavish dinners and paid sex. read more »

Exxon Mobil Seeks U.S. Sanctions Waiver for Oil Project in Russia

Exxon Mobil is pursuing a waiver from Treasury Department sanctions on Russia so it may drill in the Black Sea in a venture with the Russian state oil company Rosneft, a former State Department official said Wednesday. An oil industry official confirmed the account.

The waiver application was made under the Obama administration, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity, and the company has not dropped the proposal.

The proposal is now before the Trump administration at a delicate time in Russian-American relations, with rising tensions over the war in Syria and a looming congressional inquiry into reports of Russian efforts to influence the United States presidential election.  read more »

U.S. House banking chairman unveils Dodd-Frank replacement

The head of the U.S. House of Representatives' banking panel has unveiled the Republicans' most ambitious plan so far to loosen financial regulations, a 600-page bill to replace the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Representative Jeb Hensarling, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, also set an April 26 hearing to discuss replacing the 2010 law. read more »

How many whistleblowers did the Feds ignore? In the Wells Fargo case about 700.

The nation's top banking regulator identified problems with Wells Fargo's sales practices as far back as 2010 but failed to take timely action to halt the abuses that ultimately exploded in scandal six years later, a new government report says.

Compiled by two divisions of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the internal report posted online Wednesday said the federal regulator "missed opportunities" to launch an earlier and deeper investigation of complaints that Wells Fargo sales incentives pushed employees to open accounts that may not have been approved by customers. read more »

Malaysia, Abu Dhabi to settle dispute over 1MDB debt

Malaysia and Abu Dhabi have reached a settlement on a dispute involving billions of dollars in debt obligations of scandal-scarred 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) that is at the centre of an international money-laundering probe. read more »