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Chris Climo counsels clients on corporate and securities issues including mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, and securities regulations matters and filings. Chris previously served as an associate in the Compliance & Government Investigations Practice at Bass, Berry & Sims from 2017-2020. During that time, he successfully defended clients against government investigations and criminal prosecutions.

In addition to the United States Department of Justice’s recently issued guidelines related to cooperation in FCA enforcement actions, the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Criminal Division recently revised its guidance pertaining to assessment of corporate compliance programs.  The revised guidance will inform DOJ’s approach to criminal investigations, charging decisions, plea agreements, and sentencing in cases involving alleged corporate noncompliance or wrongdoing.

DOJ previously published guidance on its evaluation of corporate compliance programs in 2017.  As with the previous version, the revised guidance eschews a “rigid formula” for assessing compliance programs.Continue Reading DOJ Asks “Fundamental Questions” of Corporate Compliance Programs

A recent piece of federal legislation intended to address the opioid crisis across the United States may have some unintended consequences. In attempting to prohibit “patient brokering” in the narrow context of addiction treatment and recovery centers, Congress may have unwittingly passed an unprecedented expansion of federal prosecutorial authority over payment arrangements between providers and referral sources for private-pay patients. For the reasons discussed in this blog post, any individual or entity who provides services relating to addiction treatment or recovery (as well as all clinical laboratories, regardless of whether they provide any addiction treatment or recovery services) should examine their arrangements with all referral sources for private-pay patients, even those who do not refer patients for addiction treatment or recovery services.

On October 24, 2018, the President signed into law the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act (the “SUPPORT Act”), as discussed here. The SUPPORT Act consolidated a number of opioid-related bills, including the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA), which was intended to address the problem of “patient brokering” in the context of treatment centers and sober homes.Continue Reading The Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act: An Unprecedented Expansion of Anti-kickback Liability to Private-Pay Referrals?