Client Alert
The U.S. Government's Recent Efforts to Ban Pharmaceutical Executives from the Industry Without Due Process
April 29, 2011
The White Collar Crime and Regulatory Enforcement Practice
Earlier this month, as part of the Obama Administrations effort to make the case that it will pursue individual high-level executives and CEOs in addition to the companies they run, the Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS-OIG) informed the Chairman, CEO and President of Forest Laboratories Inc. (Forest Labs) that it intends to exclude him from doing business with the federal government. Such an exclusion of Forest Labs top executive could prevent Forest Labs from selling its drugs in connection with government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration, which could amount to a corporate death sentence, unless the company drops the executive. One would think that the executive must have been found guilty of criminal activity, or found liable for misconduct in a civil lawsuit, but that is not the case. The executive has never been accused of or charged with any wrongdoing.
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