Marketing firm Publicis sued by Massachusetts AG for fueling pain meds epidemic and getting docs to prescribe more pain meds

Ā Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Health sued a global marketing companyĀ  Publicis for engaging in unfair and deceptive marketing schemes to help a pain medication maker to market and sell certain pain medications that are addictive painkillers. The work included creating sales training materials and emails and other information distributed to prescribers to...
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Compliance Issues with Overcoming ā€œFrictionā€ in the Sale of Expensive Pharmaceutical Products

By Gregg Shapiro The pharmaceutical distribution and reimbursement system in the United States has many inherent ā€œfriction pointsā€ that discourage unnecessary use of expensive pharmaceutical products. Because having a robust compliance program makes good business sense,[1] compliance professionals in the pharmaceutical industry should understand the dynamics of these friction points and be aware of the...
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Coinbase pays $6.5 million to settle charges by CFTC of fraudulent “wash trades” in Bitcoin and Litecoin

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday digital asset exchange Coinbase Inc paid $6.5 million to settle charges it reported misleading transaction data that potentially inflated the apparent trading volume on its professional GDAX platform. The fine was issued forĀ  ā€œwash tradesā€ in litecoin and bitcoin by a former Coinbase employee...
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Google censorship program in China Project Dragonfly shocks employees and human rights activists

Google has developed a program which censors its search engine for China codenamed and the controversial program is codename ā€œDragonfly.ā€ What it does is to link usersā€™ search history to their personal phone numbers, according to media reports. Internal documents leaked to journalists described how the search platform can block internet users in China...
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COMING WEEK: White House to announce $200 Billion in new tariffs on China’s consumer goods and hi tech products on Monday says WSJ

The White House is prepared to announce on Monday or Tuesday that the U.S. will levy new tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The upcoming tariffs is expected to be set on internet technology products and other electronics, printed circuit boards, and consumer goods including...
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New sanctions on Russian firms issued by U.S. Treasury over threats to undersea cables

As a result of Russia's increased interest in undersea cables which serve to operate the internet worldwide, the U.S. Treasury Department has placed two individuals and two companies on its sanctions list. It did so because they aided a Russian firm Divetechnoservices which helped improve Russia's underwater surveillance abilities by buying undersea equipment and...
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