For months, Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager who took over a pharmaceutical company and raised the cost of a critical drug more than fiftyfold, has been the face of corporate greed and immoral business practices. He may soon has a record to go along with his well-earned reputation. Shkreli was arrested on a seven-count indictment alleging that he fraudulently induced investors to invest in two separate funds and misappropriated Retrophin’s assets to satisfy Shkreli’s personal and professional debts. Presumably, if convicted, the judge will not (despite natural temptations) enhance his sentence 50 times simply because he want a higher profits penalty curve.
Notably, the charges have nothing to do with the disgusting price gouging that Shkreli, 32, demonstrated at his current company, Turing Pharmaceuticals. Shkreli spent $55 million in August for the U.S. rights to sell Daraprim, a 62-year-old drug for a rare parasitic infection, and then raised the price from $13.50 to $750 per pill. The drug is the only approved treatment for toxoplasmosis, a disease that mainly strikes pregnant women, cancer patients and AIDS patients.
After international outcry, Shkreli said the company would cut the price of Daraprim, but then reneged on the promise and said that the company would instead reduce what it charges hospitals for Daraprim by as much as 50 percent. However, the company would still charge insurance companies the full exorbitant price.
Shkreli was quoted as saying that he wished he had raised the price more and that “No one wants to say it, no one’s proud of it, but this is a capitalist society, a capitalist system and capitalist rules. And my investors expect me to maximize profits, not to minimize them or go half or go 70 percent but to go to 100 percent of the profit curve.”
None of the gouging over Daraprim was deemed illegal. Instead the criminal charges instead involve his actions at Retrophin, a company that he ran as CEO from 2012 to 2014. Shkreli is being sued for more than $65 million, by Retrophin accusing him of using his control of the company to enrich himself and to pay off the claims of financial fund investors he had defrauded.
The investigation did not apparently deter Shkreli from spending wildly as the self-described “most eligible bachelor. He recently purchased the only copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album titled “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” for $2 million.
Source: New York Times
Aridog….cuz no one does. Buffett calls them “shake downs”….. the cost of doing business….but what they are is a tax…..non appropriated. If they were to level the field….maybe. But they are not instead they solidify oligarchs. We didn’t don uniforms for that….it’s more than a peeve. 5000 vets a year realize their “use” and off themselves for being bambozaled. We commit suicide why? We say they suicide bomb and take innocent with them for x y and z. So we better fix x y and z for THEM.. Never mind just x and y for our own men and women. Maybe big pharma instead of drugging them could give them a job and amplify their self worth….not everyone who becomes a vet has a first shirt resume.
J … your point about just who gets the usg fines is one of my peeves. I’ve never met a guy who got dime one from the usg out of some of those huge “fines”… WTF? š
Aridog…..but there is low hanging fruit….and in plain sight and targeting and all “for profit” usg fines. Never to correct the system. Just enrich it. In the real world if his accredited investors were harmed….( this ponzi wasn’t publically traded right?) then by the very definition of an acredited investor they had the means….To mount a case and get restitution if they were screwed. And the usg wouldn’t get a cut beyond court fees. Here the usg will get the bulk of fines…the victims little. Likewise remember in 2012 when the doj hit big pharma for off lable marketing….to over 7 billion that year….did the victims get the money? That. Was a lot of money. No the usg got the money. Remember when they tried to cut your retired cola to “save” 6 b$ over TEN years. Yes there is low hanging fruit. It’s time for vets like you to realize you (@ me) are just as low hanging as this dude or big pharma. We didn’t don our uniforms….so accreddited investor rules get sec attention when some non public ceo screws up. The rules were his accredited investors take him to task. We didn’t don our uniforms for big pharma to agree to screw its investors….by paying offf the feds. Either ppl were damaged to the tune of 7 billion or not. In the end the usg got the research off pharma it wanted….plus seven billion. And who payed? The shareholder and the insured….we all did. For taxation without representation or restitution. That’s not why i ever wore the uniform. We are all low hanging fruit.
You make yourself low hanging fruit, well…that’s just what you are š Bureaucrats love you.
J … said another way: “Caveat Emptor.” I agree, but am amused with a weenie gets caught anyway….because they “jumped” above their “pay grade.”
So the fuxx what……his investors were “accredited” ….ie sophisticated….it wasn’t. Like he was pawninng it off to the secondary market….take some and lose rung bitches. That is the system. Weep weep he screwed a couple millionaires youd have us believe he fuxx the market. Wah waa.
Ralph Adamo … I agree we should not forget the big picture and the big fish who get away with malfeasance. This might be a good time to have a conversation about how to diminish that phenomena. One with real and practical suggestions…and I admit I have few of those just now. Being a DOD “Fed” for a long time, plus wearing a uniform earlier, I know too well how “big” makes corruption easy (senior bureaucrats of SES and higher were my bain of existence) …whether it’s “big” in government or “big” in industry & commerce.
Given I was in a military environment it never ceased to amaze me how “staff” bureaucrats presumed you could act without direction from your Commander (mine was a colonel usually, once a general) or at the least certainty that your “directed” action would not go against them. They’re the ones who get the black mark on their file if you screw up, so if a big wig staffer gave me instructions I either advised my Commander, seekoing assent or rejection of the idea, or tell the big wig to do so directly and then I’d listen to the Commander. This was a bone of contention countless times when I pointed out that both the big wig and I were “staff” and had higher rank to consult. The “how dare you” meme was rife…but chain of command was paramount. How could another military type not realize that? Take a short cut at your peril….if you do you are way way above your pay grade at most levels, even as a senior manager, which I was in those days.
In once got “blown away” (along with my commander at the time) for telling the truth because it was NOT what the big wigs, including their own commanders, at times, wanted to hear or promote. Once when my commander and I were especially “creamed” by a general over this, and we later were proven right (we’d refused to “fib” even a bit…it was a readiness matter)…we both got hand written notes (also inserted in to our DOD and OPM files) from the same general we’d disagreed with apologizing for the erroneous negative appraisal and thanking us for telling the truth, when very many others lied and made him look unprepared once audited & inspected. I thought that gesture of acknowledgement was the class act of that year.
You never mess with “readiness” reports or assertions…it can get people killed. Sadly, such fabrication is all too common within the the massive DC bureaucracy, both military and civilian. But you do NOT have to play along if you have the facts to back you up…so don’t. No one will shoot you…really š
And, of course, I certainly agree with Nick that Shkreli is “small potatoes,” and, like Aridog, I have no sympathy for him either. But let’s not forget the big picture and recognize that the big fish do, indeed, get away, and more easily than ever.
BFM: “Crony law enforcement, in a historical sense, is a relatively recent phenomenon. . . I did not realize it before, but in the S&L scandal of the 1980ās more than 1,000 executives were prosecuted.”
I can’t agree with the first part. Perhaps you’ve heard of the old expression, “the big fish get away.” That expression has been around a long time, as has its application to business criminals. We should recall that the original book and movie, The Godfather, was actually an allegorical representation of the “legitimate” business criminals. For the big meeting between the Mafia leaders across the USA, the director selected the exterior of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
However, your second point regarding the S&L scandal is true. But that merely illustrates that things have gotten worse and the “big fish” are more secure than ever.
Karma.
Or, as otherwise known, “your character is your fate.”
Nick … small potatoes, maybe, but he’s a “dick” (dang that use of my name) and deserves what he gets. “Weak” isn’t the word I’d use for scamming millions. Big criminals are “big” for a reason….they bought somebody. And you’re right, bureaucrats love “easy.” Okay by me in this case. The punk is the one who made it easy…no help from government needed. What was he thinking? Obviously, he doesn’t “think” much. The mirrors get in the way.
Aridog, And they loved to give the press a heads up so they could get the perp walk. This guy is small potatoes. The govt. love to go after the easy, weak criminals. The low hanging fruit. Their not going after the big criminals is in large part that it’s difficult. The govt. LOVES easy.