On November 16, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a Special Fraud Alert highlighting fraud and abuse risks associated with payments to physicians related to speaker programs sponsored by pharmaceutical and medical device companies. Despite the pharmaceutical and device companies’ longstanding use of speaker programs to educate heath care professionals about their products, OIG appears to take a different view of company-sponsored speaker programs, expressing doubt as to whether those programs have any educational value at all. Given prior guidance reg ..read more

In May 2020, the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, the authority charged with regulating financial firms and maintaining the integrity of the financial markets in the United Kingdom, reported that whistleblowing reports to the Financial Conduct Authority on workplace culture issues in 2019 had increased by 35%. There is also evidence of an increase in whistleblowing reports made during the COVID-19 lockdown, with WhistleB, the Swedish-European provider of whistleblowing solutions, reporting an increase of 40% in the number of concerns raised by whistleblowers in Europe from January to May 2020 ..read more