The brave new world of Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse enforcement: whistle-blowers, pre-filing agreements, and voluntary disclosure

Providers participating in the recent wave of mergers, acquisitions, and affiliations may have unwittingly expanded their false claims exposure because many false claim-type situations are difficult, if not impossible, to identify in pre-closing due diligence. In addition, the possibility of retrospective characterization of ordinary billing mistakes as "false claims" increasingly introduces significant uncertainty to the average provider's financial future. To date, the single most effective approach to this problem is an independent compliance review to identify and resolve any existing exposure, including voluntary disclosure if appropriate, and an ongoing compliance program to communicate to all employees not only the content of applicable rules but also the genuine commitment of management to ensure continuing compliance above other concerns.     

Access to telecommunications equipment and services by the hearing impaired and other disabled persons--FCC. Final rule; suspension of rule enforcement

This Order suspends enforcement of hearing aid compatibility for telephones required by section 68.112(b) (1), (3), and (5) of the Federal Communications Commission rules to be hearing aid compatible by May 1, 1993 for establishments with twenty or more employees and by May 1, 1994 for establishments with fewer than twenty employees. This action responds to an Emergency Request for Stay of section 68.112(b) filed by the Tele-Communications Association and is taken to give the Commission adequate time to evaluate serious issues raised in the Emergency Request involving costs of compliance and the feasibility of compliance with 47 CFR 68.112(b).     

企业劳动规章的法律性质辨析——兼评我国企业劳动规章法律制度

通过对有关企业劳动规章法律性质各学说的比较分析,认为企业的经营需要与劳动者的权益保护是决定企业劳动规章法律制度的两个基本因素,故提出“修正的根据二分说”的观点,主张企业劳动规章系由基于劳资双方合意的契约发挥效力部分和基于企业经营管理权产生、法律赋予其约束力的部分构成;进而对我国现行企业劳动规章法律制度,尤其是《劳动合同法》第4条中劳资双方权利失衡问题进行了探讨。     

论精细化思想在高校工会管理工作中的应用

精细化管理思想,从20世纪50年代由丰田公司提出之后,不仅成为全球企业提高管理质量和规范管理行为的重要思想,而且逐渐被引入到了公共组织管理领域,包括高校管理。高校工会所面临的员工群体比较特殊,在管理工作中引入精细思想的教育、规范和激励功能,可以提高高校教职员工的积极性以及建立和谐的校园人际关系。     

Beyond Compliance Monitoring: New Strategies for Safety Regulators

Although the advent of general duty legislation makes the task of the regulator far less clear-cut, inspectorates are still involved in monitoring and to some extent enforcing compliance with rules of various sorts. Monitoring compliance in this way is crucially important, but this article seeks to identify strategies that go beyond compliance monitoring, by drawing on research on the causes of accidents and the nature of organizations. The strategies identified include: auditing the auditors; proactive investigation; supporting company safety staff; advising on organizational design; exposing performance; and promoting regulatory crisis. These are all ways in which regulators can encourage companies to improve their management of risk, ways that are not focused on identifying noncompliance with rules of any sort.     

Business Response to Regulation: An Economist's Perspective

This chapter presents an economist's perspective on the interrelationship of the compliance and enforcement decisions of business and regulators in the context of regulations governing occupational health. Assuming profit-maximizing firms and harm-minimizing enforcement agencies, it is argued that a degree of preventive activity would be undertaken by businesses even in the absence of regulation. However, if employees are not fully informed about the risks of the workplace, it is likely that the profit-maximizing level of prevention will be less than socially optimal, and consequently there will be a need for regulation. An enforcement agency which attempts to minimize harm through inducing compliance with regulatory standards will be faced with similar informational difficulties to individual employees, and this suggests some scope for cooperative gains with individual firms through negotiated compliance, rather than prosecution.     

The Humdrum of Legality and the Ordering of an Ethic of Care

This paper provides an ethnographic analysis of the ways that employees of an emergency shelter create and maintain order. The paper applies the framework of legal consciousness to explicate the practices of the employees that amount to “private ordering.” The employees administer the rules of the shelter in the context of an “ethic of care,” but one that is outside the purview of formal law. This ethic, however, is polysemic, and the employees, therefore, must adopt diverse styles based on their understandings of their professional roles regarding the needs of the clients. The practices of two employees are highlighted in detail, whose strategies in applying and maintaining adherence to shelter rules are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Both make decisions in a somewhat spontaneous and, more importantly, inconsistent, fashion. Despite the complications that arise from applying the rules as such, the employees tolerate, even laud and celebrate, these methods. While this system of private ordering has little resemblance to the ordered, consistent, and rigid application of formal law, it allows the employees to administer diverse strategies of ethics of care and shape practices to fit their professional roles and the complex exigencies of an emergency shelter. The paper locates the extant private ordering not in the law, nor in its shadow—assumed to be preconditions—but outside or beyond them. Given that this ordering is founded against the law—it is not law, nor law‐like and has no desire to so be—the paper suggests that it can be thought of as private ordering proper and lays the framework for theorization that accounts for its instrumental and symbolic dimensions.     

To What Extent Do Third Parties Influence Business Compliance?

Regulatory scholars have increasingly observed that it is not only public regulatory agencies and official enforcement action that motivate and enforce businesses' compliance with the law; in many situations, certain third parties may have greater capacity and power to motivate and enforce compliance with the law than do official regulatory agencies. This paper examines the extent to which businesses' worries about, and perceptions of pressure from, various third parties influence their internal compliance management activities and moral commitment in relation to complying with the objectives of competition and consumer protection law. Using data from a survey of 999 large Australian businesses, we find that businesses worry a lot about the reactions of a range of third parties including customers, shareholders, employees, and business partners to non-compliance. We find little evidence that these worries have much impact on what businesses actually do. However, perceptions of risk of complaints do influence what they do.     

Respiratory protection--OSHA. Final rule; request for comment on paperwork requirements

This final standard, which replaces the respiratory protection standards adopted by OSHA in 1971 (29 CFR 1910.134 and 29 CFR 1926.103), applies to general industry, construction, shipyard, longshoring, and marine terminal workplaces. The standard requires employers to establish or maintain a respiratory protection program to protect their respirator-wearing employees. The standard contains requirements for program administration; worksite-specific procedures; respiratory selection; employee training; fit testing; medical evaluation; respiratory use; respirator cleaning, maintenance, and repair; and other provisions. The final standard also simplifies respirator requirements for employers by deleting respiratory provisions in other OSHA health standards that duplicate those in the final standard and revising other respirator-related provisions to make them consistent. In addition, the standard addresses the use of respirators in Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health (IDLH) atmospheres, including interior structural firefighting. During interior structural firefighting (an IDLH atmosphere by definition), self-contained breathing apparatus is required, and two firefighters must be on standby to provide assistance or perform rescue when two firefighters are inside the burning building. Based on the record in this rulemaking and the Agency's own experience in enforcing its prior respiratory protection standards, OSHA has concluded that compliance with the final rule will assist employers in protecting the health of employees exposed in the course of their work to airborne contaminants, physical hazards, and biological agents, and that the standard is therefore necessary and appropriate. The final respiratory protection standard covers an estimated 5 million respirator wearers working in an estimated 1.3 million workplaces in the covered sectors. OSHA's benefits analysis predicts that the standard will prevent many deaths and illnesses among respirator-wearing employees every year by protecting them from exposure to acute and chronic health hazards. OSHA estimates that compliance with this standard will avert hundreds of deaths and thousands of illnesses annually. The annual costs of the standard are estimated to be $111 million, or an average of $22 per covered employee per year.     

An integrated model of perceived unfairness in organizations

Attitudes and behaviors of employees in organizations are influenced by fairness judgments employees make about organizations. A model is presented that proposes (i) when fairness becomes an issue to employees, (ii) how certain rules are chosen to evaluate a situation as fair or unfair, and (iii) the psychological and behavioral reactions that may result from judging something as unfair. The managerial implications of the model are discussed.     

Dipping and coating operations. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Labor. Final rule

OSHA's standards for dipping and coating operations, codified at sections 1910.108 and 1910.94(d), are designed to protect employees from fire, explosion, and other hazards associated with these operations. On April 7, 1998 (63 FR 16918), OSHA published proposed revisions to these standards in the Federal Register. The Federal Register announcement requested comments on the proposed rule, as well as on three major issues identified by OSHA. Based on these comments and other considerations, the Agency has developed the final standard to accomplish several goals: To rewrite the former standards in plain language; to consolidate the former requirements in sequential sections (sections 1910.122 through 1910.126 in subpart H of part 1910); and to update the former standards to increase the compliance options available to employers. In addition to achieving these goals, OSHA concludes that the final rule being published today will enhance employee protection by making it more understandable and useful to employers and employees and more flexible and performance-oriented than the former rules. The final rule accomplishes these goals without increasing the regulatory burden of employers or reducing employee protection.     

Toward general principles of managerial fairness

The present study identified the principles employees use for judging a broad range of managerial actions. A cross-sectional sample of 44 executives were asked to describe recent fair and unfair treatment in seven areas of management responsibility: planning, staff development, delegating, motivating, coordinating, daily activities, and representing the organization to the public. These responses were coded to yield 16 rules guiding judgments about perceived managerial fairness. Aggregation of these rules yielded six major clusters of fairness concerns. The paper describes these clusters in detail and highlights their potential usefulness to a broader understanding of the complex nature of procedural fairness judgments in organizations.     

合规计划的效度之维——逻辑与实证的双重展开

基于对传统企业犯罪预防模式的反思,以及企业责任形式的转变,尤其是文化责任、结构性疏忽的采用,企业合规计划（CorporateComplianceProgram）得以产生并蓬勃发生;对于合规计划的效度问题,实证研究缘于方法论的缺陷,难以达成一致结论;从实证转向逻辑思辨,合规计划对于企业及其职员过失犯罪具有显著作用,而对于故意犯罪,则应区分犯罪主体;对于一般企业职员及中层管理人员的故意犯罪具有一定作用,但对于企业高层职员则难见成效;基于对合规计划及其成效的分析,文章提出选择性借鉴的观点,增加激励机制,严厉刑罚,同时避免合规计划的过度适用引起的诸多问题。     

Request of General Electric Company to exempt medical diagnostic equipment from the Commission's rules--Federal Communications Commission. Report & Order in Gen. Docket 81-461

This Order establishes an exemption for certain electronic medical equipment from FCC regulations designed to minimize radio interference caused by devices that employ digital circuitry. The costs of testing for compliance with specific emissions limits would be severe and most medical equipment has characteristics which inherently reduce the likelihood of interference. The Commission in this action amends the rules to relieve the compliance burden.     

法律规制视野下的劳动者休假权——以节日文化与钟点时间的历史演进为进路

自机械钟表发明以来，钟点时间（clocktime）日益深入地影响了劳动者个人及其家人的身体作息。伴随着工厂制度和劳动力受雇用情况的出现，时间变成了金钱，变成了雇主的金钱。劳动者身体受到时间无所不在的牵制，也开始变成一个俗常的行为。特别是20世纪初以来，劳动者基本权利之演进和劳动者工作时间之人性化探讨，又不断彰显其在法律体系中的重要意义。因此，以节日文化的法律规制之历史演进为研究进路，研究在钟点时间（clocktime）的规约下，调整劳动法律关系出现的原因，从政治、经济特别是法律文化的视域，阐述节假日功能与劳动者休假权保护的多元商谈价值及其法理基础，就有了一种特别的人文关怀。     

劳动职业伤害的企业社会责任主体分析——以“毒苹果”为例

苹果公司供应商联建科技使用有毒化学原料正己烷导致百名员工中毒的案例引出一个法律难题——间接职业伤害主体的责任问题。本文从"毒苹果"事件提出的法律问题、职业伤害间接责任主体承担企业社会责任的依据,以及间接责任主体承担企业社会责任的途径等方面进行了论述,提出职业伤害间接主体应承担扩大的企业社会责任;间接责任主体承担企业社会责任应从企业自身监督、利益相关者参与治理及政府监管等方面进行。     

职代会的定位与功能重塑

职代会制度是我国颇具特色的一项职工参与制度。随着市场经济体制的建立以及企业治理制度的变革，职代会的地位和作用发生了变化，需要重新审视职代会的正当性。目前，有关职工参与的各种理论从不同角度论证了职代会的正当性，职代会对完善公司治理、加强公司监督、维护公司利益也具有积极作用。我国应通过完善职代会设立规则、职权设置，使传统的职代会与市场经济体制下的现代公司治理机制相契合，让职代会成为职工与企业协商沟通的主要平台，在新的体制环境下发挥协商和监督等功能。     

The Role of Trust in Nurturing Compliance: A Study of Accused Tax Avoiders

Why an institution's rules and regulations are obeyed or disobeyed is an important question for regulatory agencies. This paper discusses the findings of an empirical study that shows that the use of threat and legal coercion as a regulatory tool--in addition to being more expensive to implement--can sometimes be ineffective in gaining compliance. Using survey data collected from 2,292 taxpayers accused of tax avoidance, it will be demonstrated that variables such as trust need to be considered when managing noncompliance. If regulators are seen to be acting fairly, people will trust the motives of that authority, and will defer to their decisions voluntarily. This paper therefore argues that to shape desired behavior, regulators will need to move beyond motivation linked purely to deterrence. Strategies directed at reducing levels of distrust between the two sides may prove particularly effective in gaining voluntary compliance with an organization's rules and regulations.     

Work Rules: How International NGOs Build Law in War‐Torn Societies

Drawing on socio‐legal literature and fieldwork in South Sudan, this article argues that international aid groups operating in conflict settings create and impose a rules‐based order on the local people they hire and on the domestic organizations they fund. Civil society actors in these places experience law's soft power through their daily, tangible, and mundane contact with aid agencies. As employees they are subject to contracts and other rules of employment, work under management and finance teams, document routine activity, and abide by organizational constitutions. In analyzing how South Sudanese activists confront, understand, conform to, or resist these externally imposed legal techniques and workplace practices, this article decenters state institutions as sites for understanding law's power and exposes how aid organizations themselves become arenas of significant legal and political struggle in war‐torn societies.     

内化法律之路——以内化禁止性规则为切入点

法律作为一套外在的规则体系,存在规则制定者与遵守者的二元对立,为化解这种对立,本文先将法律限缩为禁止性规则,并将其分为自然禁止性规制和实证禁止性规则.然后借鉴康德的形式道德理论说明服从自律要求是遵守自然禁止性规则的原因,再通过演化博弈理论将遵守实证禁止性规则的动机还原为对利益的追求,分别提出内化两种规则的理论进路.从此法律就不再是对人的外在强加,而变成了自愿选择.