Fraud

In Trust We Trust — Yonathan Arbel

by

Post by Yonathan Arbel

The recent leak of the Panama Papers exposed the public to the magnitude of assets held in offshore accounts. These accounts are often associated with motives such as tax evasion and asset shielding from creditors, although they may be more legitimate motives to locating one’s assets offshore, such as privacy or preference for the rules of a specific legal system.  The estimates of how much is stowed offshore vary significantly, from one to five trillion dollars, an interval so large that it mostly reveals our ignorance. We simply know too little about these accounts, their motives, structures, and value—which, from the viewpoint of those who designed these trusts, is a feature, not a bug.  The most comprehensive work to date on the topic is that of Professors Sitkoff and Schanzenbach, who studied U.S. institutional trustees. However, these trustees are not likely representative of offshore trusts, and so, our understanding of offshore trusts is still foggy.

In a new intriguing paper, forthcoming in the Hastings Law Journal, Adam Hofri-Winogradow is providing us with a glimpse into the clandestine world of onshore and offshore trusts.  Hofri used a combined qualitative methodology of surveying and interviewing providers of trust services. Overall, he surveyed 409 providers of trust services and interviewed 25. Of his many findings, I will highlight just a few.

Read more

More on Fraud in the Performance, this time from the Supreme Court — Greg Klass

by

Post by Greg Klass

A few weeks ago I posted on the Second Circuit’s decision in US ex rel. O’Donnell v. Countrywide Home Loans, which held that Countrywide’s knowing delivery of effectively worthless loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, without disclosing that fact, was not fraudulent. One way to read the decision is as affirming the well established, and to some baffling, rule that a party to a contract has no duty to disclose its breach of the contract, no matter how knowing or material. (For more evidence of bafflement on this count, see Brandon Garrett’s fine post on the case.)

I mentioned in my post that the result might have been different had the Countrywide plaintiffs’ False Claims Act claim not been dismissed. Those who are interested in that road not taken in Countrywide might take a look at the Supreme Court’s decision last Thursday in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar, which addressed the implied certification doctrine under the FCA. In its most robust form (and oversimplifying a bit), the implied certification rule says that the mere act of submitting a claim for payment on a covered contract represents compliance with the contracts material terms, as well as with other governing laws and regulations. Or what is functionally equivalent: If the contract, a law or a regulation requires compliance, there is a duty to disclose any material noncompliance when requesting payment. Had this rule applied, Countrywide would have almost certainly been subject to the FCA’s treble damages and per-claim fines.

Read more

Interpretation in Omnicare v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund – Greg Klass

by

Post by Greg Klass

In this first post, I’d like to point readers to opinions in Omnicare v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund, 575 U.S. ___ (2015). Though a securities fraud case, the Omni opinions raise more general questions about the private law of deception.

The issue in Omni was whether a company could be held liable under 15 U.S.C. § 77k(a) for so-called statements of opinion, such as “We believe that our contract arrangements with other healthcare providers, our pharmaceutical suppliers and our pharmacy practices are in compliance with applicable federal and state laws.” Slip op. at 3. The Sixth Circuit had held that such statements were actionable if the company’s beliefs were “objectively false.” The Supreme Court reversed, based on the common law rule that a statement of belief is (in most cases) actionable only if the speaker does not actually hold the belief. It is not enough to show that the belief was false. A plaintiff must show that it was not actually held.

Read more