Kickbacks

Pulte Homes Inc. and KB Home are among six builders that agreed to pay a total of $1.4 million to settle federal investigations into whether they accepted rebates from insurers for referrals when selling homes. The kickback investigations, ended as part of the settlements, are among hundreds being conducted by states, including California, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development into payments by title insurers.

Schering-Plough Corp. will pay $346 million to settle charges that it paid a kickback to a big health insurer to protect the price of its top-selling allergy drug, the company and federal prosecutors announced Friday. A subsidiary, Schering Sales Corp., also will plead guilty to violating an anti-kickback law and will be banned from participating in federal health programs for five years, authorities said.

A prominent Los Angeles-area sports medicine clinic has agreed to pay $3 million to the federal government to settle allegations that it received illegal kickbacks for referring patients to another healthcare provider, authorities said Tuesday. The Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic allegedly received kickbacks from the HealthSouth Corp. in the form of stock-option grants, donations to the Kerlan-Jobe Foundation, loan forgiveness on an equipment lease and a high ownership interest in an ambulatory surgery center owned by the two healthcare firms, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

Hartford Financial Services Group agreed Wednesday to pay $20 million to settle charges that it secretly paid insurance brokers to improperly steer corporate customers to the company. The payments to the brokers, including Brentwood Asset Advisors of Westlake Village and Santa Monica, were called "expense reimbursement agreements," and were supposedly paid to compensate them for their costs in helping companies choose group annuities.

An executive at a Hollister defense contractor pleaded guilty Monday to three federal charges of accepting $3,000 in kickbacks to provide work for a Fullerton company. Donald Cleveland, a manager at Quantic Industries Inc., faces a sentence of 30 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. He remained free on bond Monday until his sentencing, which is scheduled for Jan. 8 in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana. Cleveland was accused of taking kickbacks from Richard J. Kern, an executive at in Fullerton.

A lawsuit filed in St. Louis on behalf of investors accuses brokerage A.G. Edwards Inc. of taking millions of dollars in secret kickbacks over the last five years to push certain mutual funds to clients. The lawsuit claims that the alleged payments, known as revenue sharing, created a conflict of interest between the St. Louis-based financial services holding company and its customers. Revenue-sharing fees are legal but must be properly disclosed. A.G. Edwards declined to comment.

New York pension fund manager Alan B. Bond was charged by U.S. authorities with taking nearly $7 million in kickbacks from brokerage firms in connection with his management of retirement accounts belonging to National Basketball Assn. players and other clients. An 11-count federal indictment charged that he used his clients' accounts to trade with brokerage firms connected with his friend, Robert Spruill. The firms then kicked back $6.

NASD said it fined eight brokerages, including U.S. units of Prudential and Lord Abbett & Co., almost $7.8 million for taking kickbacks from mutual funds. Commonwealth Financial Network, Mutual Service Corp., Lincoln Financial Advisors Corp., Lord Abbett Distributor and four Prudential units steered clients into preferred funds in return for payments, NASD said in a statement Monday. In return, the fund firms sent their trading business to the brokerages, the regulator said.

The chairman of the Navajo Indian tribe has received kickbacks of at least $125,000 since 1986--including cash, expensive remodeling and hotel expenses--by companies vying for construction contracts on the reservation, two contractors told a Senate subcommittee Thursday. The contractors, both white, said that they had set up dummy firms headed by Indians whose sole purpose was to qualify for jobs reserved for the minority group.