By Susan Schneider Thomas In a unanimous decision strongly supporting whistleblowers and recognizing the public interest that they serve, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court confirmed that an employee terminated for reporting suspicious activities by a government sub-contractor could recover non-economic damages – essentially, damages for emotional distress – in addition to economic damages for loss [...]
The IRS awarded former banker at UBS, whistleblower Bradley Birkenfeld, an award of $104 million for the inside information he provided related to UBS's illegal offshore banking tax fraud case. UBS AG, a corporation organized under the laws of Switzerland, operates a global financial services business. Beginning in 2000 and continuing until 2007, UBS, through [...]
Pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay $3 billion in fines to settle criminal and civil violations. This is the largest health care fraud settlement to date in the United States. The qui tam portion of the civil lawsuit arose under the False Claims Act and is said to be worth over $1 billion. At issue in the civil [...]
By Jonathan DeSantis The Ninth Circuit recently applied the materiality requirement for claims under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) and provided guidance for the application of the Supreme Court’s seminal decision on the FCA’s materiality requirement in Universal Health Servs., Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar.[1] The False Claims Act’s Materiality Requirement Under [...]
By Joy Clairmont On May 31, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey allowed relators’ False Claims Act (“FCA”) lawsuit against Janssen to proceed to litigation. United States et al. v. Johnson & Johnson, et al., Civ. A. No. 12-7758, 2017 WL 2367050 (D.N.J. May 31, 2017). Although claims [...]
By Joy Clairmont On May 1, 2017, in United States ex rel. Petratos v. Genentech, Inc., 855 F.3d 481 (3d Cir. 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit endorsed a tri-partite approach in analyzing the medical necessity theory of liability under the False Claims Act. While the Third Circuit ultimately [...]
By Russell Paul Health First, Inc. and related entities have agreed to pay $3.5 million to resolve a False Claims Act lawsuit filed in 2014 by a whistleblower (the “relator”). The related entities include Health First, Inc., Health First Health Plans, Inc., Health First Medical Group, Holmes Regional Medical Center, Palm Bay Hospital, Cape [...]
By Russell Paul On June 9, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss in the False Claims Act lawsuit titled U.S. et al. ex rel. Tina D. Groat v. Boston Heart Diagnostics Corp., No. CV 15-487 (RBW), 2017 WL 2533341, at *1 (D.D.C. June [...]
By Jonathan DeSantis In Part I of this blog series, we discussed the False Claims Act (“FCA”)’s public disclosure bar and the so called industry-wide public disclosure bar. In this blog post, we will examine a recent qui tam case that discusses and rejects the industry-wide public disclosure bar. An industry-wide public disclosure bar [...]
By Jonathan DeSantis The False Claims Act (“FCA”) permits private individuals, known as relators, to sue on the Government’s behalf to recover funds that were fraudulently or falsely obtained from the Government. If a relator successfully recovers money for the Government, the FCA provides that the relator is entitled to a substantial percentage of [...]
