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The U.S. Justice Department has accused RehabCare Group Inc. of paying more than $10 million in kickbacks to gain access to Medicare and Medicaid patients in Missouri nursing homes.

According to a civil lawsuit transferred last week to U.S. District Court in St. Louis, Clayton-based RehabCare began making payments in 2006 to induce a Missouri nursing home chain to grant RehabCare a contract to provide therapy services.

RehabCare’s revenue-sharing arrangement with the nursing home owner — Sikeston, Mo.-based Health Systems Inc. — defrauded the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs of millions of dollars, federal investigators allege.

Justice Department officials use the federal anti-kickback statute, which forbids paying others for referrals of Medicare and Medicaid patients, as a critical tool in fighting health care fraud and holding down costs in federal health programs.

The lawsuit, originally filed under seal by a whistleblower in Minnesota and joined last year by the U.S. government, provides details of a long-running federal probe into RehabCare’s business dealings in Missouri.

RehabCare lawyers say the government’s accusations do not contain sufficient details to support the accusation that the revenue-sharing scheme comprised illegal kickbacks.

“The government’s substantive kickback allegations – absent the conclusory allegations, legal conclusions and innuendo – are rather threadbare,” RehabCare’s lawyers said in court papers.

Named as defendants are RehabCare Group, Health Systems Inc., and its affiliate, Rehab Systems of Missouri LLC, which previously provided therapy services to Health Systems nursing homes. No individuals are named.

Until recently, Clayton was the headquarters for RehabCare. Last year, RehabCare was purchased by Louisville-based Kindred Healthcare Inc.

“We deny and intend to vigorously defend against these allegations,” Susan Moss, a Kindred spokeswoman, said in a written statement.

Scott Hinkle, general counsel for Health Systems, declined to comment on the pending litigation.

According to federal investigators, the alleged kickbacks involved a tangled web of ownership and lucrative business ties. RehabCare “has received in excess of $70 million in revenue from the transaction since it closed in 2006,” according to the government’s complaint.

Investigators from the FBI and Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services say that RehabCare crafted an illegal arrangement with Health Systems and Rehab Systems. The deal, investigators allege, included a one-time, $600,000 payment from RehabCare to Rehab Systems, as well as an ongoing 30 percent cut of federally financed therapy services, which was split between Health Systems and Rehab Systems.

RehabCare, in exchange, was granted a five-year contract to provide therapy services to nursing home patients of Health Systems.

In all, Rehab Systems recorded profits of more than $10 million from the nursing home contract, even though the limited liability company “has not had a single full-time employee … conducts no operations … and provides nothing of value to the nursing homes and no legitimate services to RehabCare,” investigators allege.

Talks between the three companies started in 2003. Seeking to increase its market share in Missouri nursing homes, RehabCare entered negotiations that included purchasing Rehab Systems from Health Systems, which was owned by James Lincoln. Lincoln also had an ownership stake in Rehab Systems.

According to the government, those talks stalled when negotiators voiced concerns that the deal could violate the anti-kickback law. That’s because RehabCare’s five-year contract with Health Systems was made contingent on its willingness to also purchase Rehab Systems.

In 2006, the parties agreed to a contract that did not involve an acquisition. RehabCare began providing therapy services to Health Systems’ nursing homes, effectively displacing Rehab Systems — but only on the condition that Rehab Systems get a cut of RehabCare’s revenue, even while Rehab Systems did none of the work, investigators allege.

According to court papers, Lincoln owns about 60 nursing homes in Missouri. Rehab Systems was co-owned by Lincoln, his son Jimmy Lincoln, and manager Tom Hudspeth.

In February 2006, RehabCare made a one-time payment of about $600,000 to Rehab Systems, federal investigators allege. The payment “created a financial windfall to Hudspeth,” who had a financial stake in Rehab Systems, but no ownership stake in Health Services or the nursing homes, investigators say.

They also say that RehabCare charged Health Systems only 70 percent of the Medicaid reimbursement amount — while Health Systems billed the government for the full amount. Health Systems and Rehab Systems split the difference of the remaining 30 percent.

Justice Department officials say that the $600,000 payment and the profit received by Rehab Systems amount to illegal kickbacks. Federal law forbids the payment or acceptance of “any renumeration” for referrals of patients for federal health care services.

In court papers, RehabCare lawyers acknowledged that the company made a payment to Rehab Systems, but differed over the amount. The company paid a $405,765 “recruiting fee” to Rehab Systems, and insist that the payment represents “reasonable consideration and fair market value,” the company’s lawyers assert in court records.

The case began in 2007 as a whistleblower lawsuit, filed under seal by a RehabCare competitor, Minnesota-based Health Dimensions Rehabilitation Inc. RehabCare has contracts with about 50 nursing homes in Minnesota.

After conducting an investigation, the Justice Department decided in December to join the lawsuit. The case was transferred to St. Louis because most of the relevant events took place in Missouri and key witnesses are located here.

The suit accuses RehabCare and the other defendants of filing false Medicare and Medicaid claims and of making or using false records or statements to support those claims. The Justice Department has asked for the defendants to pay treble damages plus civil penalties of as much as to $50,000 per every false claim. But the outcome of such cases is usually a settlement.

“There were many claims filed,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Chad Blumenfield of Minneapolis.

He said that one purpose of the anti-kickback statute is to control costs by discouraging the payment of referral fees for health services. It also encourages providers to make health care decisions “based on what’s in the best interest of patients, rather than the best financial interests of the nursing home or the therapy company.”

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Home Depot says its fiscal first-quarter profit climbed 27.5 percent as warmer weather brought consumers out for spring gardening and lawn products.

The world’s biggest home-improvement company also boosted its 2012 financial outlook Tuesday, citing its year-to-date performance.

But the Atlanta retailer’s quarterly revenue results and its full-year revenue guidance fell short of analysts’ expectations. Its stock dropped 3 percent in premarket trading.

Home Depot Inc. reported net income of $1.04 billion, or 68 cents per share, for the period ended April 29. That’s up from $812 million, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier.

The latest results beat the 64 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet expected.

“We saw a stronger-than-expected start to the year, driven by record warm weather and continued demand for core products,” Chairman and CEO Frank Blake said in a statement.

Revenue rose 6 percent to $17.81 billion from $16.8 billion. But that missed Wall Street’s estimate of $17.89 billion.

Home Depot’s shares fell $1.50, or 3 percent, to $48.38 ahead of the market opening.

Revenue at stores open at least a year rose 5.8 percent, with the metric climbing 6.1 percent for U.S. locations.

This figure is a key indicator of a retailer’s health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

The company expects fiscal 2012 earnings of $2.90 per share, with revenue up about 4.6 percent. This implies revenue of approximately $73.66 billion. Home Depot previously predicted earnings of about $2.79 per share and a 4 percent revenue increase.

Analysts had expected earnings of $2.90 per share on revenue of $74.06 billion.

Home Depot has 2,254 stores in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces, Mexico and China.

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Apple is the world’s most valuable company. The Dow Jones industrial average is probably the world’s best-known stock index. So don’t they deserve each other?

If Apple had been added to the Dow in June 2009, the last time there were serious rumors that it would happen, the average would be about 2,500 points higher than it is today. It would also be well above its all-time high.

That’s the calculation of Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group, which crunches numbers about the markets guaranteed online personal loans. He says the Dow would be at 15,360, about 1,200 points above its record.

Dow Jones Indexes, which maintains the average, says its purpose is to reflect the broad economy _ not pick the hottest stocks.

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The first time I wrote about Sean Egan and his small, independent credit-research firm, Egan-Jones Ratings Co., was in December 2007 for a column about the bond insurer MBIA Inc. And man, did he nail it.

The three big credit raters — Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings — all had AAA ratings on MBIA’s insurance unit, their highest grade. Egan said it deserved much lower. Anyone reading MBIA’s financial reports could see the company was losing money and needed billions of dollars of fresh capital.

By mid-2008, the Big Three had cut their ratings. Once again, Egan, a lonely voice of reason who saw the financial crisis coming, had shown his larger competitors to be incompetent or compromised. It was one of many great calls to come for Egan-Jones. As for MBIA, which had no revenue last quarter, it’s still struggling.

So if you had told me back then that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division more than four years later would be accusing Egan, and his firm, of securities-law violations — but not any of the big rating companies — there’s no way I would have believed you. That’s what happened last week, though.

Life isn’t fair, as they say. The big raters, paid by the issuers of securities they grade, so far have gotten a pass, even after helping cause the financial crisis by slapping AAA scores on oodles of subprime-mortgage dreck. Egan-Jones, with fewer than 20 employees, makes its money by selling subscriptions to investors, meaning it’s not beholden to issuers. Yet Egan and his firm are getting pinched, although nothing in the SEC’s administrative complaint indicates investors were harmed.

None of this is to excuse infractions Egan-Jones might have committed. We will have to wait and see if the agency’s claims stick in court. That said, it seems Egan-Jones’ mistake was to seek recognition from the SEC at all.

The allegations mainly concern the application Egan-Jones filed with the agency in 2008 to expand its license as a so-called nationally recognized statistical rating organization. The firm, based in Haverford, Pa., first received that designation in 2007 for rating corporate debt, insurance companies and banks. Its 2008 application, which the SEC approved, sought recognition as a rater of asset-backed securities and government bonds.

Egan-Jones at the time said it had about 150 ratings on issuers of asset-backed securities and about 50 on government-debt issuers. The complaint said those numbers were overstated and that the firm hadn’t made any such ratings publicly available free online credit report. Attorneys for Egan, 54, and the firm say their clients filled out the SEC’s application based on their understanding of what the form required.

Additionally, the complaint accused Egan-Jones of committing numerous book-and-record violations, such as failing to maintain a system for retaining e-mails. It also said the firm let two analysts participate in determining ratings for companies in which they owned securities, in violation of agency rules. An attorney for the defendants, Alan Futerfas, said the claims are without merit.

What about the big rating companies? McGraw-Hill Cos., S&P’s parent, in September said the SEC’s staff had issued S&P a “Wells notice” warning that the agency may seek penalties over its rating of a $1.6 billion collateralized debt obligation in 2007. S&P received its letter the month before Egan got its Wells notice. There’s no telling if the SEC will follow through.

In 2010, the SEC issued an investigative report that said a Moody’s rating committee in 2007 knowingly decided to keep inflated ratings on about $1 billion of notes after discovering an error in one of the firm’s models. Later in 2007, Moody’s applied to the SEC for recognition under the same 2006 federal law that Egan-Jones saw as its chance to join the same club as the Big Three.

The rating process used by Moody’s in that instance violated the policies described in the company’s application, the SEC said. However, the report said the agency decided not to accuse Moody’s of violating any laws, because some of the conduct occurred outside the U.S., presenting jurisdictional hurdles. Lucky break, I guess.

The way Congress and the SEC have rigged this game, nationally recognized credit raters are a unique species of opinion merchants, endowed with sweeping authority and special privileges. Institutional money managers often are required by law to abide by their judgments. The better approach would be to scrap the designation, so investors are encouraged to do their own homework.

Egan-Jones, which has been in business since 1992, could have continued as an independent, not subject to government oversight or control. Instead it chose to play within the Big Three’s system, exposing itself to the whims of the SEC. Now it’s paying the price.

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Iraq says oil exports jumped by 15 percent in March compared to the previous month, putting them at the highest level the nation has seen since 1989.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said Sunday that last month’s oil exports averaged 2.31 million barrels a day, up from an average of 2.01 million barrels a day in February.

He added that the sales grossed $8.472 billion, an increase of nearly 28.5 percent from February’s revenues of $6 guaranteed high risk personal loans.595 billion.

The oil was sold to a 28 international oil companies.

Iraq relies on oil exports for 95 percent of its revenues. The increase is attributed to the inauguration of a new export terminal in the Persian Gulf last month.

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Selling soybeans, iron and copper ore and other commodities to Asian countries has transformed Latin America over the past decade, stabilizing economies despite worldwide crises and lifting tens of millions of people into the middle class. Now, say officials from both Asia and Latin America, a second gold rush is under way.

Asian investors flush with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash now see Latin America as a top business opportunity, and they’re flooding into manufacturing, construction and other industries, particularly in up-and-coming countries such as Brazil, Peru and Mexico. That’s transforming the lucrative relationship that was based primarily on exporting raw materials to Asia, an arrangement that frustrated governments eager to stimulate their own manufacturing.

Government and business officials meeting this week at the World Economic Forum in Mexico said the investment surge means Asia is poised to overtake the United States and the European Union as Latin America’s top trading partner over the next decade. Asian representatives have been an unmistakable presence at the forum, with South Korean, Chinese and Japanese investors making the rounds at this seaside city’s gleaming white convention hall.

“We’re talking about tens of billions of dollars in just Korean banks looking for a destination,” said Kevin Lu, Asia Pacific regional director of a World Bank Group agency that insures foreign investments against political risk. “When I meet with investors, Latin America is in every conversation about this.”

Already, Chinese investment in Latin America has jumped from a few million dollars just a few years ago to about $15 billion in 2010, with most of the money going into mining and other extractive industries in Brazil, Peru and other nations, said Alicia Barcena, executive secretary for the Chile-based United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Chinese investment in the region jumped again last year, to about $23 billion, Barcena said.

Japan, meanwhile, surpassed even that figure last year and displaced China as the region’s top Asian investment and trade partner, Barcena said. She didn’t provide a precise number for Japan’s total.

China already ranks among the top three trading partners with Peru, Brazil, Chile and Argentina, and Asian investment in auto and other manufacturing in Mexican industrial cities has greatly expanded the middle class.

“I don’t have any doubt that Asia will soon become the region’s top trading partner,” said Mexican Economy Secretary Bruno Ferrari Garcia de Alba. “In Mexico, we believe we need to get closer and closer to Asia.”

According to the U.N. economic commission, 17 percent of Latin America’s exports went to Asian-Pacific countries in 2010, more than tripling from 5 percent in 2000 business card design. Over the same span, the share of the region’s total exports that went to the United States dropped from 60 percent to 40 percent.

Ferrari said Asian-Pacific countries buy 31 percent of Mexico’s total exports, amounting to $110 billion, with that number growing by an average of 20 percent annually over the past five years.

Lu, of the World Bank Group agency, said raw material industries in Latin America are now getting only 40 percent to 50 percent of total Asian investment in the region, while the rest goes to manufacturing, construction and other businesses.

He said foreign money flowing into a new region often first goes into buying natural resources because it’s a simpler business than making things, which requires dealing with labor, setting up supply chains and complying with various government rules.

“The Chinese look at natural resources as easier to manage, while manufacturing and construction is a lot more complicated,” Lu said. “It’s a very natural progression for any bilateral trade relationship to start to become broader, and to move into other areas.”

Hanwha, a South Korean petrochemicals company, is considering manufacturing in Latin America rather than continue to concentrate its production in China, said Sang M. Lee, CEO of the company’s U.S. operations.

At the same time, the company is eyeing the Latin American market, especially as it moves into solar energy, Lee said after a Wednesday morning at the World Economic Forum dedicated to the future of Asian-Latin American relations.

“We need that new production because there are a lot of resources in Latin America, and we need more markets,” Lee said. “We’re just at a beginning stage with this.”

To be seen is whether the rising Asian investment will quiet concerns around Latin America that exporting commodities while importing manufactured Asian goods will ruin domestic companies and leave the region vulnerable. Brazil, in particular, has raised import tariffs on manufactured goods to protect its own industries.

Peruvian Trade and Tourism Minister Jose Luis Silva Martinot made clear Wednesday that despite the economic benefits from Asian trade and investment, Peru still sees China and other Asian countries as competitors.

“We can see they’re up scaling the quality of their products,” Silva said. “Three-quarters of our exports are raw materials. It’s something we want to change.”

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Japan

Sean Chua expected the hunt for his first job after college to be tough. After all, he watched his brother struggle to find a position when he graduated back in 2008. But his fears were unwarranted. The 21-year-old justice major at American University sent out only seven resumes before getting an offer earlier this month from IBM for an IT consulting job, making him a beneficiary of a turnaround in the labor market for U.S. graduates. “My mom’s first position was with IBM so she is particularly proud,” says Chua. Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction. After four years during which many students graduated to find no job and had only their loans to show for their studies, most college campuses are teeming with companies eager to hire. A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found 2012 hiring is expected to climb 10.2 percent, above a previous estimate of 9.5 percent.

Companies such as General Electric, Amazon, Apple and Barclays Global are looking for new staff, even if some firms remain below the pre-recession levels of new hiring. In another sign of the recovery, some first-time job seekers are receiving multiple offers.

At University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the career service office has seen up to now a 7.4 percent increase in the number of interviews of students by potential employers from last year and the number of companies seeking to recruit for full-time jobs is up 9.2 percent. Undergraduate business majors reporting full-time job offers is up about 10 percent.

Career experts at a dozen of U.S. schools said they have seen an increase of 15 to 30 percent in the number of companies attending campus career fairs. At University of Florida, the fall career fair garnered 15 percent more companies in attendance than in 2010. And 150 companies asked to conduct interviews versus about 100 in recent years, said Ja’Net Glover, associate director of employer relations at the school. The increase in demand was so significant that it was the first time in years the school had to use both the first and second floors of the school’s basketball facility for interviews.

“It’s kind of like a no-brainer,” says Kathy Sims. Director of Career Services at UCLA. “The economy is better and the college recruitment market is improving.”

While the U.S. jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in February, unemployment among college graduates over the age of 25 stood at 4.2 percent. Historically, their jobless rate is half that of Americans with only a high school education. Over the recession, unemployment among graduates climbed as high as 5 percent, sparking protests over the rising tuition cost of some U.S. colleges. U.S. unemployment data for March, due for release on April 6, is expected to show a total of just over 200,000 jobs were created in the month, keeping the overall unemployment rate at 8.3 percent.

BACKLOG FROM PAST YEARS, INTERNS SOAR

College graduates’ earnings are also on the rebound payday loan lenders. NACE says the median wage for first-time job seekers after college for 2012 is up 4.5 percent higher than a year ago to $42,569.

That initial pay level can resonate over the span of a career. Several studies show that the life-time earnings for workers who enter the labor force at time of economic recession are lower than lifetime earnings of those who are hired amid an economic recovery. Given the tepid recovery of the economy, some caution is required. In 2008, many college graduates who had already accepted job offers were later away. After the run of lean years, many graduates are stuck in low-paying jobs and professions that never intended to follow, meaning there could be a backlog of well-educated workers who need to get their careers on track as well as new graduates. However, with a wide range of employers — from automakers to investment banks — back on campus offering internships and full-time jobs, and not just to engineering, computer science and math majors, the outlook for the Class of 2012 looks rosy.

General Electric wants to hire 5,000 interns this year, up from its usual 3,000 to 4,000. Since 70 percent of its full-time hires come from the interns pool, Steve Canale, head of global recruiting, said that uptick will also translate into more full-time jobs after graduation. “(Companies) are saying, ‘we have an aging workforce, and we have to replenish the pipeline.’ GE has always done it, but this year a lot of other companies are also reloading their talent pool,” Canale said.

Chrysler said it plans to hire 400 interns this year compared to 256 in 2011. The automaker has also hired almost 4,000 salaried employees since June 2009, about a quarter of which are new college graduates. The pick-up in hiring extends to industries that were among the hardest hit during the financial crisis. Schools report that banking and financial services companies have returned to campus for the Class of 2012.

It’s a stark contrast from just a few years ago when smaller firms appeared on campuses to replace the corporations no longer showing up.

“Even students with lower grades are finding opportunities,” says Notre Dame’s Svete, who believes job placement at the school is up about 7 percent. In 2009, only 75 percent of students had jobs or plans for graduate school at graduation. This year, the school expects that to climb to 85 to 88 percent, closer to the 90 percent level of 2007.

Nathan Pace, a senior at American University, hasn’t yet found a job, but is confident for his future job. He started the college four years ago and he has since seen each class of graduating seniors have better luck finding jobs.

Many of his friends recently secured job offers. “The vibe on campus is that people are excited,” says Pace.

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China

The Bank of Korea held off raising borrowing costs for an eighth straight month as the economy slowed and exports declined due to the European debt crisis.

Governor Kim Choong Soo and his board kept the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate unchanged at 3.25 percent, the central bank said in a statement in Seoul today. The unanimous decision was predicted by 18 of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Policy makers in export-driven Asian countries have relied on monetary or fiscal stimulus to weather the European debt crisis. Australia unexpectedly held off cutting interest rates this week on signs of improvements in the U.S. and Europe. Kim has signaled that rates will have to rise at some point and said today that inflation expectations are high and the central bank is