OCTOBER 25, 2019 / BY BRAD PERRIELLO
Life Spine and its two top executives agreed to collectively pay nearly $6 million to settle charges that they ran an illegal kickbacks scheme to promote the use of its orthopedic implants.
The case dates back to February 2018, when a quartet of anonymous whistleblowers filed a False Claims Act suit alleging that the Huntley, Ill.-based company, president & CEO Michael Butler and business development VP Richard Greiber doled out more than $7 million in illicit payments to bribe doctors to use Life Spine products, was joined by federal prosecutors in April. In July federal prosecutors accused the company and the executives of funneling millions in kickbacks to surgeons — enough to account for half of the company’s total domestic sales from 2012 through 2018.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York, alleged that the company, Butler and Greiber made the payments, to surgeons and entities owned by them, in the form of consulting fees, royalties and intellectual property acquisition payments.
