Class Action Complaint against Amedisys uses Sarbanes-Oxley Act Corporate Governance Provisions to Battle Alleged Corporate Malfeasance
by ilene - June 16th, 2010 5:35 pm
Interesting to note that these actions are not being brought because Amedisys may have gamed the Medicare System but rather on the basis that if it did in fact game it, AMED had an ethical obligation to disclose its tactics. - Ilene
Class Action Complaint against Amedisys uses Sarbanes-Oxley Act Corporate Governance Provisions to Battle Alleged Corporate Malfeasance
Courtesy of Sam Antar, White Collar Fraud
Last week, Pomerantz Haudek Grossman & Gross LLP filed a class action lawsuit against Amedisys (NASDAQ: AMED) charging the company, its CEO William F. Borne and its CFO Dale E. Redman with securities fraud. In the next few days, Bernstein Liebhard LLP and Finkelstein Thompson LLP filed similar class action lawsuits against the company. The lawsuits allege that Amedisys abused Medicare’s reimbursement system for at-home therapy care based on a compelling analysis of company revenues in an April 27 Wall Street Journal article.
In addition, the lawsuits innovatively utilize a provision under Section 406 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 which provides a back-door way for investors to force ethical corporate governance and sue public companies for malfeasance. That provision requires Senior Financial Officers, such as the CEO and CFO of public companies, to abide by a strict code of ethics which broadly defines corporate malfeasance and effectively makes it easier for defrauded investors to prove misconduct by certain senior executives. Suing public companies for code of ethic violations can be a potent tool to insure good corporate governance and conduct.
Allegations that Amedisys intentionally increased patient visits to trigger higher Medicare reimbursements
According to the Pomerantz press release:
Specifically, the Complaint alleges that defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: (1) that the Company’s reported sales and earnings growth were materially impacted by a scheme whereby the Company intentionally increased the number of in-home therapy visits to patients for the purpose of triggering higher reimbursement rates under the Medicare home health prospective payment system, as those excess visits were not always medically necessary; (2) that the Company’s reported sales and earnings were inflated by said scheme and subject to recoupment by Medicare; (3) that the Company was in material violation of its Code of Ethical Business Conduct and compliance due to the scheme to inflate Medicare revenues; and (4) based on the foregoing, defendants lacked a basis for their positive