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Monday, February 20, 2012

International Medicine Procurement Illegal Bribe Whistleblower Reward Lawsuit, Medicines Supply Chain Bribe Whistleblower Lawsuit, and International Medicine Procurement Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Lawsuit Information by International Medicine Procurement Illegal Bribe Whistleblower Lawyer, Drug Procurement Contract Bribe Lawyer, and International Medicines Illegal Kickback Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason S. Coomer

International Medicine Procurement Illegal Bribe Whistleblower Reward Lawsuit, Medicine Supply Chain Bribe Whistleblower Lawsuit, Drug Procurement Illegal Kickback Lawsuit, Pharmaceutical Representative Whistleblower Reward Lawsuit, and Drug Representative Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Lawsuit Information by International Medicine Procurement Illegal Bribe Whistleblower Lawyer, Drug Procurement Contract Bribe Lawyer, and International Drug Representative Illegal Kickback Whistleblower Reward Lawyer Jason S. Coomer
 
Every year over $4.1 trillion (US dollars) is spent worldwide on health services including approximately $750 billion (US dollars) that is spent in the pharmaceutical market on drugs and medications. It is estimated that approximately 10 to 25% of public health care procurement spending including drug contracts, medicines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, and medical devices is lost to corrupt and fraudulent acts.  These acts include government official bribes, illegal kickbacks, and other illicit payment and fraud schemes.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines the term "medicines chain" to be the steps that are required for the creation, regulation, management and consumption of pharmaceuticals.  In other words it is the medication supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry from creation to end user. According to the World Health Organization, corruption is common in the international pharmaceutical sector and occurs throughout all stages of the medicines supply chain, from research and development to dispensing and promotion.  These unethical and corrupt practices in the medicines supply chain can take many forms such as falsification of evidence, false certification of adulterated drugs, import false certifications, export false certifications, conflicts of interest, and illegal bribe and kickback schemes. 

As such, the World Health Organization and many other international public health organizations are seeking public policy changes under the umbrella of good governance initiatives within the medicines chain to reduce government corruption and optimize public health outcomes.  Some proposed public policy changes that can help reduce corruption and fraud in the pharmaceutical medicines chain include: 1) protection of international medicines supply chain whistleblowers; 2) offering financial incentives to international medicines chain whistleblowers; 3) passage of legislation and regulation for drug quality control and official certifications to monitor the transport of medications including the export and import of medicines throughout world and along international medicines supply chains; 4) increased enforcement mechanisms for violations of existing pharmaceutical laws and regulations; and 5) increased resources for conflict of interest management and checks to ensure key people in the medicines chain are not accepting illegal bribes, kickbacks, and other illicit payments.

In response to these good governance initiatives, the international community including the United States, United Kingdom, and many other countries have enacted new anti-bribery and anti corruption laws that will enable persons with knowledge of international medicines supply chain fraud and corruption to expose the illegal acts and reap rewards from blowing the whistle, while being protected from potential retaliation from the wrong doers.

While there are an increasing number of reported cases of corruption in the medicines chain, much unethical practice has historically gone unreported.  This is changing as new whistleblower protections and whistleblower financial incentives are coming into place to help overcome  institutionalized corruption in the pharmaceutical medicines chain and to provide protection for courageous whistleblowers that want to change the institutionalized corruption that is damaging their countries.
Because medicines typically change hands several times in the medicines chain between the drug manufacturer and patients, the large number of steps in the medicines chain allows numerous opportunities for unethical practices to take place.  Therefore increased regulations and laws throughout the medicines chain including manufacturing quality assurances, export regulations and inspections, import regulations and inspections, health care provider regulations and inventory policies, and patient protections are needed.  Fortunately, the new international whistleblower laws will allow international whistleblowers with specialized knowledge of the corruption to blow the whistle on fraud, false certifications, and illicit payments that are occurring throughout the medicines chain.     

A lack of transparency and accountability within the medicines chain can also contribute to unethical practices and corruption.  Therefore increased enforcement mechanisms are needed for violations of existing pharmaceutical laws and regulations.  These enforcement mechanisms include "SEC Bounty Actions" that allow private citizens to work through international medicines supply chain whistleblower reward lawyers to expose significant fraud and obtain large bounties for successful prosecution of pharmaceutical illicit payment schemes.  Ideally, these international medicines supply chain whistleblower reward actions will track fraud and corruption to the root causes and help reform corporate corruption of public health care systems.  Through international pharmaceutical representative whistleblowers, international drug executive whistleblowers, foreign government official whistleblowers, health care provider whistleblowers, and other medicines supply chain whistleblowers, the international community can efficiently identify, expose, and remedy medicines chain corruption.

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International whistleblowers can recover large amounts of money for exposing international medicine procurement kickbacks, medicines supply chain bribes, and other violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  As such, pharmaceutical representatives, international drug executives, government officials, physicians, health care providers, community activists, and other persons, who are the original source of specialized knowledge of international drug company bribes, international pharmaceutical company illegal kickback schemes, public health medicine procurement bribery schemes, and other illicit payments for drug procurement, medical device procurement, medication, pharmaceutical, and medical equipment contracts.  

Thursday, February 16, 2012

China Import Export Bribe Whistleblower Reward Lawsuit, China Customs Illegal Kickback Informant Reward Lawsuit, & China Illegal International Trade Bounty Action Information by China International Business Bribe Bounty Lawyer, China Import Export Bribe Lawyer, and China Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violation Lawyer Jason S. Coomer

China Import Export Bribe Lawsuit, China Business Bribe Bounty Reward Lawsuit, China Customs Illegal Kickback Informant Reward Lawsuit, & China Illegal International Trade Bounty Action Information by China International Business Bribe Bounty Lawyer, China Import Export Bribe Lawyer, and China Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Violation Lawyer Jason S. Coomer

Foreign multinational corporations investing in the People's Republic of China and Chinese multinational corporations investing in other countries can often be held accountable when they violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and other anti-bribery laws.  These laws prevent government corruption including illegal payments to customs agents, bribes for construction contracts, illegal kickbacks for regulatory approval, and other illegal business practices.  Through the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), whistleblowers are encouraged to step up and confidentially report corruption.  Under new whistleblower protections, these Chinese whistleblowers and multinational corporation whistleblowers can confidentially report violations through a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Lawyer and receive large financial rewards for being the first to properly expose significant government corruption. 
 
China's Emerges as an Economic Superpower through International Trade, Modernizing Chinese Ports & Distribution Systems, Logistics Parks, and Allowing Foreign Investment

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has a population of over 1.3 billion and is the most populous state in the world.  The Communist Party of China governs the People's Republic of China and exercises control over 22 provinces (23 provinces if Taiwan is included), five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (SARs), Hong Kong and Macau. Because of this government control of Chinese industries, bribery of Chinese officials, Chinese government bribes, and illegal kickbacks to Chinese customs agents and Chinese regulatory agents are more common. 
The capital city of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is Beijing.  Since the introduction of market-based economic reforms in 1978, China has become the world's fastest-growing major economy.  Since the 1980s, the People's Republic of China has used international trade and foreign investment to emerge as an economic superpower.  From 2001 to 2010, China's international trade imports and exports increased from about $500 billion per year to approximately $3 trillion per year.  A large part of this rapid expansion can be attributed to foreign direct investment that has surged into China.  As of 2012, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has become the world's second-largest economy by both nominal GDP and purchasing power parity (PPP), and is also the world's largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods.

China has spent large amounts of money to construct and modernize approximately 160 Chinese ports including about 50 coastal ports and 110 inland river ports. These ports are an essential part of the development of China's massive import and export international trade.  By investing billions of dollars in these ports, China had been able to drastically increase the total handling capacity of harbors along China’s coast as well as continuously expand its import and export businesses. 

The Modernization of Chinese Ports & Distribution Systems by Allowing Foreign Investment has Greatly Expanded China's Ability to Import and Export Goods as well as Develop Manufacturing Industries

This Chinese import and export network is formed around three major harbor areas: 1) The Bohai Sea area of northern China (including Beijing) is serviced by the ports of Tianjin, Dalian and Yantai; 2) the Yangtze River Delta area includes the ports of Shanghai and Ningbo; and 3) the Pearl River Delta in southern China includes the ports of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. These ports have experienced tremendous growth and expansion over the last decade and have helped China increase its international trade.

To help develop Chinese ports, the Chinese government has encouraged foreign direct investment into port modernization programs.  By bringing in foreign investments including resources and technology, the Chinese government has been able to successfully expand international trade including imports and exports.  Through liberalization of foreign investment restrictions in the modernization of Chinese ports, the Chinese ministries have been able to improve international trade and port logistics  including in the areas of transportation, freight forwarding, storage, warehousing, and port management.
China's largest and busiest ports include Port of Hong Kong, Port Shanghai, Port of Shenzhen, Port of Guangzhou, Port of Qingdao, Port of Dalian, Port of Lüshunkou, Port of Jiuzhou, Port of Suzhou, Port of Xiamen, Port of Ningbo, and Port of Tianjin.  This thriving network of Chinese ports have seen modernization and logistical technology used to greatly increase China's ability to import and export goods leading to economic prosperity.

However, with this expansion on imports and exports has come fierce competition for Chinese business and huge profits that can be obtained through government corruption and illegal bribes.  These violations include violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by Multinational Corporations, their wholly owned subsidiaries, joint venture partners, and agents.  These complicated business structures commonly create elaborate bribery schemes to obtain and retain Chinese business including bribing public officials and customs agents to circumvent container certification, legal customs, import requirements, and other legal requirements.  These illicit payments are often paid through an elaborate kickback scheme where employees and agents of large multinational corporation or their wholly owned subsidiary falsely characterize illicit payments to public officials as commissions or other expenses.  Many of these illicit payments are made through foreign banks and are actually kickbacks paid to government officials.

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There is a worldwide effort by the international community to crack down on government corruption, illegal kickbacks, and illegal bribes.  This effort includes initiatives by the United States to identify and prosecute illegal bribery schemes of government officials.  To identify hard to detect bribery schemes, the United States Securities Exchange Commission is offering large bounties (whistleblower rewards) for persons with specialized knowledge of systematic bribes and complicated bribery schemes.  These large economic incentives are designed to encourage import export experts, customs experts, logistics experts, and other persons aware of complicated import and export bribes and government fraud to step up and become a confidential import export bribe whistleblower, customs fraud whistleblower, logistics whistleblower, and other international trade whistleblower. 

The United States Bounty Actions are set up under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).  The FCPA applies to “issuers” (U.S. and foreign companies listed on U.S. securities exchanges and their employees); “domestic concerns,” which run the gamut of business entities organized under U.S. laws or with their principal place of business in the United States; the officers, directors, employees, and agents of those U.S. business entities (irrespective of nationality); U.S. citizens; U.S. resident aliens; “any person,” including all foreign persons, who commit an act in furtherance of a foreign bribe while in the United States, and U.S. businesses and nationals acting abroad. A Company must require all of its affiliated companies and all of their employees to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.