Third Circuit Clarifies Public Disclosure Bar in False Claims Act
In United States v. Omnicare, Inc., the Third Circuit clarified the operation of the public disclosure bar in the False Claims Act (FCA). The court held that publicly available information “could not have reasonably or plausibly supported an inference” of fraud. This information included government reports of known fraud schemes and a 10-k financial disclosure by the defendant company. The Third Circuit rejected application of the bar because the relator used non-public information to “make sense of publicly available information.”
The UK Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act signifies major changes to the UK’s anti-money laundering and sanctions regimes. Britain’s overseas territories, often criticized as tax havens, are now required to establish public registries of beneficial corporate ownership by December 31, 2020. The Act also includes a Magnitsky Amendment, modeled on U.S. law, enabling sanctions against foreign government officials implicated in gross human rights abuses.
In an effort to stimulate innovation in Switzerland’s financial markets, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”) announced its plans to relax anti-money laundering requirements for certain smaller financial technology firms. If implemented, these plans would go into effect on January 1, 2019.
The Second Circuit issued its judgment on the case we have been monitoring, U.S. v. Hoskins. The court held that the “government may not expand the extraterritorial reach of the FCPA by recourse to the conspiracy and complicity statutes.”
Many conclude that a C plea means a Corporate Plea. Used infrequently, a C plea restricts discretion of a federal district judge to sentence a criminal defendant. By expressing his concerns about a proposed C plea for a company, one federal judge changed the result. In an 
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh proves a staunch defender of attorney-client privilege for companies. In FTC v. Boehringer Ingelheim Pharms., Inc., one of his final opinions before stepping away from casework because of his Supreme Court nomination, Judge Kavanaugh solidified his stance taken in the 2014 case In re Kellogg Brown & Root, Inc. 
The U.S. Supreme Court has adopted three amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (“Rules”). They affect Rule 12.4 (Disclosure Statement), Rule 45 (Computing and Extending Time), and Rule 49 (Serving and Filing Papers). The changes do not reflect particularly large shifts in criminal procedure, but attorneys should be aware of them since, as any good litigator knows, a failure to follow proper procedures can severely prejudice a client.