NEWS
By Josh Meyer | September 3, 2009
WASHINGTON - -A landmark $2.3 billion health care fraud settlement announced Wednesday involving Pfizer Inc. has put the pharmaceutical industry on notice that its widespread and potentially criminal behavior in promoting drugs for unauthorized uses won't be tolerated by the Obama administration, government officials and legal experts said. But, they added, some companies will continue to risk prosecution for such questionable practices because the fines and penalties pale in comparison to the extraordinary profits that are being made on the widespread practice of marketing drugs for "off-label" uses that have not been approved by the federal government.
NEWS
By Tricia Bishop | July 1, 2009
Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Inc. has agreed to pay $2.75 million to settle allegations that it filed false claims to federal health benefits programs for nearly two years, the U.S. attorney for Maryland announced Tuesday. From July 2005 though February 2007, Bayview employees claimed that patients were treated for ailments they did not have, including malnutrition and acute respiratory failure, according to the settlement agreement. The claims inflated the severity of the center's case mix and, therefore, the rates at which it was reimbursed under schedules set by the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.
NEWS
By Justin Fenton | June 23, 2009
The Baltimore Police Department has agreed to hire a consultant to monitor its internal disciplinary process for the next three years under the terms of a multimillion-dollar settlement in a lawsuit that alleged institutional race discrimination. Word of the settlement came Monday, as police announced that they had dismissed internal charges against about 40 officers accused of wrongdoing as a result of an unrelated audit. The move returns those officers to the streets, continuing the fallout from the April firing of the department's in-house prosecutor, whom the police union has accused of manipulating documents.
NEWS
By Liz F. Kay | February 13, 2009
State utility regulators and union officials questioned yesterday what consumers will gain from a proposed agreement with telephone provider Verizon in settling concerns over delayed repairs as well as deregulating some services. The settlement stems from a 2007 Maryland Public Service Commission investigation into hundreds of complaints that Verizon technicians routinely missed repair appointments with customers, leaving thousands without service for more than four days. Verizon and PSC staff members structured a settlement that must be approved by the five-member commission.
NEWS
By Julie Scharper | December 18, 2008
The family of a naked, unarmed man who was fatally shot by an Anne Arundel rookie police officer in 2005 will be paid $90,000 by the county, according to a source familiar with the settlement agreement. Relatives of Donald E. Coates Jr., the 20-year-old Glen Burnie man who was killed, sued the county for $20 million in June, alleging that Officer Tommy Pleasant acted with "malice" and that the shooting was unjustified. "They felt that there were a number of factors in the case that indicated that Donald Coates wasn't in a position that he could have caused any harm to this officer," said James L. Rhodes, a lawyer representing the family.
NEWS
By Lorraine Mirabella | September 4, 2008
About 1.1 million Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. customers will receive $170 credits on their September electricity bills during the coming days as part of a state settlement with Maryland's largest utility. The credits, part of a $2 billion settlement that state lawmakers approved to resolve a dispute with BGE parent Constellation Energy Group Inc., were applied Aug. 29 to utility accounts. The company's September bills reflect the credit, which will be subtracted from a customer's electricity charges.
NEWS
March 30, 2008
It would be foolish to give an instant thumbs up or down on the proposed settlement announced last week between the state and Constellation Energy Group over the 1999 deregulation deal. Cursory analysis is what got ratepayers in trouble nine years ago. The proposal has far-reaching ramifications, and lawmakers will need to closely scrutinize all of it in the days ahead. But it's hard not to applaud several key elements of the arrangement that have obvious benefits to consumers - not the least of which is the one-time $170 credit that would be doled out to Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.'s 1.1 million customers at a cost of $187 million to the company.
NEWS
By Laura Smitherman and Timothy B. Wheeler | March 27, 2008
Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to announce today a settlement with Constellation Energy Group, ending a bitter battle between the state and BGE's parent company and securing $187 million in one-time rebates for more than 1 million residential customers, according to state officials who have been briefed on the agreement. The rebates would amount to $170 per customer and be applied to bills by the end of the year. The settlement emerged out of dueling lawsuits filed by the state and Constellation Energy last month over credits to consumers that the General Assembly ordered in 2006.
NEWS
By Tricia Bishop | March 19, 2008
W.R. Grace & Co. has agreed to pay 40 percent of the cost - a share estimated to be about $41 million - to clean up contamination at Baltimore's Curtis Bay, where the company extracted radioactive thorium from ore in the 1950s, according to a settlement agreement. The federal government, which employed Grace as a contractor at the time, will cover 60 percent of the bill. The work will be performed during the next five years if it's approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, which is overseeing Grace's reorganization.
NEWS
By Paul Adams | January 26, 2008
Baltimore brokerage Ferris Baker Watts Inc. has offered a settlement worth more than $16 million to victims of an investment fraud that was aided by a former broker at the firm, according to court documents filed this week. The proposed settlement, which is subject to conditions, would resolve disputes with about 100 victims of the fraud, which grew out of a Ponzi scheme initiated by a former Ferris client, David A. Dadante. It would also put the century-old regional brokerage a step closer to resolving a series of lengthy federal and internal investigations that have cost several senior managers their jobs and brought unwanted scrutiny at a time when its chairman, George M. Ferris Jr., is courting potential acquirers.