False Claims Act Update & Alert
	Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund | Washington, D.C. | WWW.TAF.ORG           October 21, 2011
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		Subscribe to this FREE Newsletter Enter your Email Powered by FeedBlitz n TAF Home Page n Previous Newsletters n Email editor   Please take a moment to forward this FREE electronic newsletter to others that might be interested!	Abbott Reserves $1.5 Billion for Depakote Settlement Abbott Laboratories has recorded a $1.5 litigation reserve for the third quarter to cover the costs associated with a False Claims Act case alleging the company promoted the off-label use of Depakote, an anti-seizure drug.  Business Week reports the settlement will be for $1.3 billion, of which $500 million will be a criminal fine and $800 million will be paid as part of a federal and state civil settlement. >> To read more
			U.S. Sues Foreign Bank Over Grain Deal The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Paris-based BNP Paribas bank over allegations it aided a grain export fraud scheme involving commodity payment guarantees by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A corporate banker in BNP’s Houston office allegedly facilitated the scheme which defrauded the U.S. Government of at least $78 million. >> To read more
			Ex-Louis Berger Group President Charged Derish Wolff, the former President of the Louis Berger Group, has been criminally charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. Agency for International Development by inflating overhead and other indirect costs, over nearly two decades, on hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Corporate civil charges associated with the same fraud were settled last year. >> To read more
			Pfizer Nailed... Again Pfizer has agreed to pay $14.5 million to settle a False Claims Act lawsuit charging the company with illegally marketing Detrol and Detrol LA. This case was settled without government intervention, with the relator being paid 27 percent. Notes whistleblower attorney Tom Greene: “When the marketing teams of pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer are given an opening to increase sales off-label, they seem to take it ten times out of ten.”>> To read more
			Cephalon Under Multiple Guns Cephalon is under the gun again, this time for possible illegal marketing of the sleep disorder medications Nuvigil and Provigil.  Provigil was one of the drugs named in a $425 million settlement in 2008 which resulted in a CIA that runs through 2012. Cephalon is also under investigation by the U.S. Attorney's office in New York, for off-label promotion and clinical trial work for Treanda while the U.S. Postal Service is investigating alleged fraud associated with Fentora.  >> To read more
			Bankers Charged in Tax Probe Two Julius Baer Group client advisers have been charged in a tax probe in which the U.S. Government believes at least 180 U.S. clients and the bank conspired to hide at least $600 million in assets from the Internal Revenue Service.  >> To read more
			TARP Bank Fraud? Federal prosecutors say executives for the United Commercial Bank in san Francisco cooked their books and lied to auditors just before they accepted a $298 million taxpayer bailout under the TARP program.  United Commercial Bank was the first bank to take TARP money and file for bankruptcy. >> To read more
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