The Fifth Circuit recently reversed a district court’s dismissal of a motion to return property after the government’s seizure of protected attorney-client information in Harbor Healthcare Sys., L.P. v. United States, 5 F.4th 593 (July 15, 2021).   Harbor Healthcare System, L.P. (“Harbor”) was the subject of two qui tam lawsuits—filed in 2014 and 2016—alleging violations of the False Claims Act (“FCA”).  The Civil Division of the Department of Justice shared the allegations in the qui tam actions with its prosecutors to investigate possible criminal activity.  Prosecutors obtained warrants authorizing it to search Harbor locations and offices and seize twenty-two broad categories of documents as well as smart phones, iPads, and other mobile electronic devices.  Harbor asserted that the materials seized by the government contained a wealth of information protected by the attorney-client privilege, and that the government did not inform the magistrate judges who authorized the search warrants that the government had seized privileged material from Harbor.

Sverica Capital Management has announced it has sold Women’s Health USA (WHUSA) to Unified Women’s Healthcare.

WHUSA, based in Avon, Conn., is a provider of practice management and value-based care services to women’s health providers. Founded in 1997, the company serves more than 600 physicians across seven states.

Sverica, with offices in Boston…

  • Overview

    • Broker-dealers, like most companies, rely on third-party vendors for a wide variety of functions.  This common practice of outsourcing does not relieve a broker-dealer of its regulatory compliance and supervision obligations over the outsourced functions.  Accordingly, management and supervision of third-party vendors present important issues that merit careful attention from regulatory, compliance, and legal departments within a broker-dealer.

    Insight Partners has led a funding round for Covera Health, with Covera raising $25 million in series C financing, according to a news release.

    Covera, based in New York, is a healthcare quality analytics company serving providers, employers and health plans Founded in 2017, Covera’s first product is the Radiology Centers of Excellence…

    Periscope Equity has announced it has invested in CyberMaxx through a recapitalization in partnership with management.

    CyberMaxx, based in Nashville and founded in 2009, provides the healthcare industry with a suite of services designed to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks.

    Periscope Equity, based in Chicago, is a lower middle market private equity firm…

    RoundTable Healthcare Partners has announced it has acquired American Optics and Replacement Parts Industries (RPI).

    American Optics, headquartered in Wellesley, Mass., is an engineering, manufacturing, assembly and distribution business for replacement components used in the repair of flexible and rigid endoscopes and new components used by original equipment manufacturers in endoscope manufacturing.

    RPI,…

    Chang, et. al. v. Interactive Brokers LLC (“IB”) was filed in the Northern District of California on August 2, 2021. The Complaint seeks civil damages for claims of aiding and abetting fraud, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and violation of California Business and Professions Code.

    Amazon’s financial records have revealed that the Luxembourg data protection supervisory authority, the Commission Nationale pour la Protection des Données (“CNPD”), is fining the retailer’s European arm (Amazon Europe Core S.à.r.l.) an eyewatering 746 million euros (£636m or $838m) for breaches of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

    When the GDPR was introduced in May 2018, the potential for huge financial sanctions grabbed many headlines: it gives European supervisory authorities the power to impose fines of up to 20 million euros or 4% of annual global turnover (whichever is greater) for breaches of the GDPR. There have been some undeniably sizeable fines issued under the GDPR in the last three years. But the level of this particular fine is extraordinary: it’s the largest GDPR fine issued to date by a considerable margin. The second largest fine ever imposed under the GDPR was a comparatively paltry 50 million euros, levied against Google by CNIL (the French supervisory authority) in early 2019 (which you can read about here).

    The following is an excerpt from McGuireWoods’ recent contribution to the Global Investigations Review’s (GIR’s) The Guide to Sanctions – Second Edition published in July 2021. Authors Alex Brackett, Pat Rowan and Jason Cowley, each partners in the firm’s Government Investigations and White Collar Litigation department, penned a chapter on the Impacts of Sanctions and Export Controls on Supply Chains. The full publication is available here.

    Compliance strategies

    Sanctions and export controls can be highly dynamic in the speed with which they can be implemented and adjusted. Accordingly, businesses operating with international supply chains need to be prepared to be equally nimble. Fortunately, there are relatively straightforward and scalable strategies that companies can deploy to ensure they have a robust and effective compliance framework through which to operate, as detailed below.