Monthly Archives: September 2019

Mylan had an interesting marketing strategy for its treatment for severe allergies (the EpiPen), a device-with-a-drug that the company purchased in 2007 from Dey Laboratories. Here’s how it went. For purposes of Medicaid billing, if the device-with-a-drug was classified as … Continue reading →

Stanford has identified $770,000 in its sailing program that came from payments Rick Singer made to the coach for sailing in order to secure admissions for the children of the wealthy. And there are other educational institutions around the country … Continue reading →

Federal District Court Judge Indira Taiwani in sentencing a third parent, Stephen Semprevedo, to 4 months in prison, a $100,000 fine and 500 hours of community service. Mr. Semprevado paid $400,000 to get his son into Georgetown as a phony … Continue reading →

U.S. Federal District Court Judge Indira Taiwani during a sentencing hearing for Devin Sloane. Mr. Sloane is one of the parents indicted under the federal investigation, Operation Varsity Blue, for paying Rick Singer to get their children into elite schools. … Continue reading →

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has a problem. The company’s CEO, Patrick Conway, was arrested for drunken driving in June. There had been an accident because Conway allegedly swerved out of his lane on I85 and hit … Continue reading →

In yet another California-dreaming moment, California (as of 2023) will permit its student-athletes to accept money off their names, images, and likenesses despite NCAA prohibition of such. Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay, a fine writer, sees no problem with … Continue reading →

We have suffered through Richard Scrushy (HealthSouth), Dov Charney (American Apparel), Elon Musk (Tesla), Travis Kalanick (Uber), Martin Shkreli (Turing Pharmaceuticals), Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos), Jeff Dachis (Razorfish), and the list is long and becoming boring. Now comes Adam Neumann (WeWork, … Continue reading →

First, there was this year’s Kentucky Derby with the disqualification. Country House, a 65-1 odds horse, won the Derby after Maximum Security was disqualified because of a lane foul. Now we learn that Justify, the 2018 Triple Crown winner, tested … Continue reading →

David Middendorf, the second-in-command for KPMG’s audit practice, said at the sentencing hearing that “never in my wildest imagination” did he think that obtaining the names of those KPMG clients that the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) was targeting … Continue reading →

A supervisor offered this rationalization. What had happened is that auditors had discovered that a salesman was was submitting to have three meals per day reimbursed by the company. The salesman always billed $24.99 for each meal, just below the … Continue reading →

Finally, investors are taking to heart the lessons of the dot-com bubble. Following questions about We’s truth net worth and its corporate governance (documented here last week in what is curtly, but accurately described as, “Conflicts galore!”), the IPO has … Continue reading →

Michigan State has settled with the U.S. Department of Education for its failure to report and address claims of sexual abuse by Lawrence G. Nassar. Dr. Nassar was the physician for the USOC WOmen’s Gymnastic Program. He is in prison … Continue reading →

With a public offering pending, We had to come clean on the types of relationships (aka conflicts) that are no-no’s in publicly traded companies. Here is a summary: CEO Adam Neumann — We purchased the trademark “We” from Neumann for … Continue reading →

Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms, is under FDA investigation. Novartis stock is taking a tumble because the company withheld data from the FDA in its application for approval of a gene therapy treatment for spinal muscular atrophy. … Continue reading →