In another cautionary tale of kicking all the tires before an acquisition, Pfizer Inc. agreed to a nearly $60 million settlement to resolve a whistleblower’s claims that Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd. was paying kickbacks to induce prescriptions of its migraine drug ahead of Pfizer’s $11.6 billion acquisition of the company in October 2022.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed insider trading charges against Doron Tavlin, formerly the vice president of business development for Mazor Robotics Ltd., of Caesarea, Israel, over a transaction that took place four years ago. The SEC is charging Tavlin with disclosing the then-impending acquisition of Mazor by Dublin-based Medtronic plc. to a personal friend, but these types of activities are becoming easier to detect thanks to analytics used by the SEC.
