Angela Sabbe

Angela’s professional experience includes:

• Overdraft Fee Matters: On behalf of banks and credit unions in privileged consulting and litigation environments, evaluated the following claims: Regulation E, Posting Order, Sufficient Funds, APPSN, Retry Fees, and Usurious Interest. Led teams from data acquisition, including data extraction from archived reports and data validation, assessment of potential liability, quantification of financial impact and potential exposure, evaluation of data patterns across purported classes, and development of rebuttal analyses and expert reports.
• Privileged Consulting – Changes to Fee Assessment: Retained on a privileged consulting basis to evaluate the potential impact of various proposed posting order changes, changes to daily fee caps, and changes to the OD fee structure. Analyses included assessing the impact on fee revenue as well as the breadth and depth of the impact on the bank’s customers. Following implementation by the bank, assisted with validating assessment of overdraft and NSF fees.
• Class Certification Analyses: On multiple matters, evaluated class certification arguments and quantified alleged damages related to overdraft fees posting to accounts when the transactions were allegedly a) approved positive and settled negative, b) posted against sufficient funds to cover the transaction, or c) resubmitted ACH or checks (retry fees).
• Health Plan Payment Analysis: On behalf of a health plan, led a data analytics team evaluating potential over/underpayments by the State of California Department of Health Care Services related to multiple programs under the Coordinated Care Initiative (CCI). The analysis included converting and analyzing raw 820-payment and 834-eligibility EDI files and CCI Indicator submissions covering a six-year period to determine member months for which the plan was over or under paid and the reasons for the over/underpayment and to quantify the amount of the over or underpayment, including potential mitigating payments received or owed.
• Healthcare Claims Adjudication: Led a data analytics team supporting an investigation into alleged fraudulent or negligent reporting practices. Work involved determining regulatory and contractual reporting requirements, evaluating internal reporting systems to identify relevant data, and developing the processes and procedures necessary to generate required reports related to utilization management and claims adjudication for Medi-Cal, Medicare, and commercial payers.
• Out-of-Network Disputes: On multiple matters, evaluated alleged underpayments and improper denials between major health plans and providers. Work involved assessments of payments within the market for similar services made by the health plans, payments received by providers from other payers, and calculation of potential over and underpayments, as well as sampling of alleged underpaid and improperly denied claims, with extrapolation to estimate damages.
• Health Plan and Medical Center: Led a data analytics team supporting an investigation related to members allegedly not receiving medical and pharmaceutical benefits. Analyzed referral, utilization management, medical and pharmacy claims, and member data in addition to call logs, grievance information, and appeals data to evaluate allegations and quantify the number of potentially impacted beneficiaries. Analysis of pharmaceutical claims included an evaluation of formularies over time and the underlying rejection codes to determine the reasons claims were denied. Additional phases of work included evaluating quality of care logs and benchmarking utilization rates of certain providers and facilities to address additional allegations raised during the investigation.
• Consumer Class Action: For multiple national manufacturers, performed complex data analyses of warranty claims data from multiple platforms, sales data, and customer service notes to determine the incident rate of various allegations resulting from an alleged design defect in support of affirmative of rebuttal opinions.
• Telephone Consumer Protection Act: Analyzed over 100 million electronic customer call records in a large class action matter involving TCPA allegations in support of affirmative and rebuttal opinions. On rebuttal, identified significant flaws in plaintiffs’ experts’ data analysis and methodology, resulting in a reduction to claimed TCPA violations by over 60 percent.
• Service and Construction Technicians – Payroll Audit: Through multiple audits, evaluated employee groups across a variety of geographies, each with its own compensation plan. Developed a data repository of timekeeping and payroll data to evaluate payroll compliance with company policies and local labor laws. Work involved evaluating the potential financial impact of changes to current pay practices affecting numerous geographies and positions.
• Wage and Hour Violations: For multiple employers in restaurant, retail, healthcare, and manufacturing industries, analyzed time and payroll data to assess potential exposure related to meal and rest period violations, unpaid overtime, unpaid tips, and improperly calculated regular rates, including statutory penalties. Litigation matters included employees on per diem schedules, alternative work schedules, and employees governed by collective bargaining agreements as well as using alternative data sources as a proxy for employee behavior.
• September 11th Victims Compensation Fund: Site leader in Los Angeles for the Victims Compensation Fund wrongful death adjudication team. Reviewed claims submitted by victims’ families to the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund, established by Congress to compensate families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Valued claims using compensation and employer benefits data, insurance policies, social security benefits, workers’ compensation benefits, and pension plans. Created implementation strategies of methodologies for specific employers. Supervised information gathering, valuation of loss of earnings claims, and staff interaction with government and claimant attorneys, including explanations of valuations and methodologies.