Ex-Insys CEO to plead guilty to opioid kickback scheme

BOSTON (Reuters) - The former chief executive of Insys Therapeutics Inc (INSY.O) has agreed to plead guilty to participating in a scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe a powerful opioid medication in order to boost its sales, U.S. prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Michael Babich, who resigned as the Arizona-based drugmaker’s CEO in 2015 and was due to face trial next month, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and mail fraud charges, federal prosecutors in Boston disclosed in a court filing. Five former Insys executives and managers indicted along with Babich, including John Kapoor, the company’s founder and former chairman, remain scheduled to go on trial in late January. They have pleaded not guilty. The terms of Babich’s plea deal were not disclosed, and it was unclear whether he would agree to cooperate with prosecutors and testify at that trial, as has another former Insys executive who recently pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy. Prosecutors requested a Jan. 9 plea hearing. A lawyer for Babich, 42, declined to comment.

The case centers on Subsys, Insys’ under-the-tongue spray for managing pain in cancer patients. It contains fentanyl, an opioid 100 times stronger than morphine. Prosecutors allege that from 2012 to 2015, Kapoor, Babich and others conspired to bribe doctors in exchange for prescribing their patients Subsys. Prosecutors said they also defrauded insurers into paying for Subsys. Prosecutors allege Insys paid doctors kickbacks in the form of fees to participate in speaker programs ostensibly meant to educate medical professionals about Subsys that were actually shams. The case has been brought amid a national opioid addiction epidemic. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, opioids were involved in around 47,600 overdose deaths in 2017.

Babich, who was originally indicted in 2016, is married to a former Insys sales representative, Natalie Babich, who in 2017 pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay kickbacks and became a government witness. She testified this month at the trial of Christopher Clough, a former physician assistant in New Hampshire accused of accepting kickbacks from Insys. A federal jury in Concord, New Hampshire convicted Clough on Dec. 18. In August, Insys said it had agreed to settle a related U.S. Justice Department probe for at least $150 million.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-insys-opioids/ex-insys-ceo-to-plead-guilty-to-opioid-kickback-scheme-idUSKCN1OP1B4?il=0

Exclusive: New allegations against Ghosn concern payments to Saudi businessman - sources

BEIJING (Reuters) - Fresh misconduct allegations brought by Tokyo prosecutors against ousted Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn center on the use of company funds to pay a Saudi businessman who is believed to have helped him out of financial difficulties, two company sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Prosecutors arrested Ghosn for a third time on Friday, accusing him of aggravated breach of trust in transferring personal investment losses to the automaker. The prosecutors’ statement said they believe that around October 2008, Ghosn was trying to deal with losses on paper of 1.85 billion yen ($16.6 million) incurred on a swap contract he had with a bank which it did not name. A person helped arrange a letter of credit for Ghosn and a company run by the person later received $14.7 million in Nissan funds in four installments between 2009 and 2012, the statement said, adding that the payments were made in Ghosn’s and the person’s interests. “By doing so, (Ghosn) behaved in a way that breached trust, and inflicted damage on the property of Nissan,” the statement said. The statement also said Ghosn had earlier sought to have Nissan shoulder the appraisal losses directly.

According to the Nissan sources who have knowledge of the company’s probe into its former chief, the person who helped Ghosn is Khaled Al-Juffali, vice chairman of one of Saudi Arabia’s largest conglomerates, E. A. Juffali and Brothers, and a member of the board at the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority. He is also majority owner of a company called Al-Dahana which owns half of a regional joint venture called Nissan Gulf with the other half held by a wholly owned unit of Nissan Motor. Sheikh Khaled Juffali has no comment on this subject, according to an emailed statement from E. A. Juffali and Brothers.

Ghosn’s Tokyo-based lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, was unavailable for comment on this article, according to a person who answered the phone at his law office. A representative for the Ghosn family declined to comment. Other media have said Ghosn has through a lawyer denied that he shifted losses to Nissan and has told investigators that the four payments were for legitimate business purposes, including a reward for handling problems at Nissan dealers in Saudi Arabia. Tokyo prosecutors declined to comment. Asked about Ghosn’s reported comments, a Nissan spokesman said: “We cannot comment on matters related to Ghosn’s arrest for breach of trust. Nissan’s own investigation is ongoing, and its scope continues to broaden.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nissan-ghosn-saudi-exclusive/exclusive-new-allegations-against-ghosn-concern-payments-to-saudi-businessman-sources-idUSKCN1OP18B

General Dynamics among those winning Pentagon contracts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department said on Wednesday it had awarded contracts for submarine maintenance and modernization to General Dynamics Corp (GD.N) for $1.1 billion, to Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (HII.N) for $874 million and to Oceaneering International Inc (OII.N) for $828 million.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-general-dynamics-pentagon/general-dynamics-among-those-winning-pentagon-contracts-idUSKCN1OP1CG?il=0

>>4481622

Anons, what do ya think, could these contracts be for different kinds of detention centers…Watch the Water, kind of way?

>>4482009

Baker please check these as well…

>>4481622 and >>4481974

>>4482180

Don't laugh, but I half wondered if she was Hillary in disguise, kek