Washington, DC - Global Plywood and Lumber Trading LLC (Global Plywood) pleaded guilty Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to violating the Lacey Act. The corporation admitted that it failed to exercise due care when it imported illegally-sourced timber from the Peruvian Amazon into the United States. The court sentenced Global Plywood to pay $200,000 in restitution to the Ministry of Environment of Peru and a $5,000 fine.

El Paso, Texas - A citizen of Mexico was sentenced Friday to three years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for his role in a conspiracy to smuggle protected reptiles from Mexico to the United States.

Charleston, South Carolina - On Thursday, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina entered default judgments for the United States totaling $136,025,077 against Oaktree Medical Centre P.C. (Oaktree), FirstChoice Healthcare P.C. (FirstChoice), Labsource LLC (Labsource), Pain Management Associates of the Carolinas LLC (PMA of the Carolinas) and Pain Management Associates of North Carolina P.C. (PMA of North Carolina). This is the second time the court has entered a default judgment in this matter. On July 20, 2020, the court entered a default judgment in the amount of $4,269,084.78 against ProLab LLC (ProLab) and ProCare Counseling Center LLC (ProCare). The court entered these judgments after these defendants failed to defend against the United States’ allegations. 

Washington, DC - CenturyLink Inc., now known as Lumen Technologies Inc., has agreed to pay $275,000 to resolve a civil contempt claim by the Department of Justice arising from CenturyLink’s violations of the Amended Final Judgment that was designed to preserve competition following CenturyLink’s 2018 acquisition of Level 3 Communications Inc. 

Miami, Florida - A Florida man pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by concealing information about illegal products labeled as dietary supplements.

Washington, DC - The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), filed a civil antitrust lawsuit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, against Richard D. Fairbank, the CEO of Capital One Financial Corporation, for violating the pre-transaction notification and waiting period requirements of the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act of 1976 (HSR Act) when he acquired voting securities of Capital One in 2018. At the same time, the department filed a proposed settlement, subject to approval by the court, under which Fairbank has agreed to pay a $637,950 civil penalty to resolve the lawsuit.