Whistleblower Law Blog

TweetIn U.S. ex rel. Lee v. Corinthian Colleges, The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the District Court’s holding dismissing whistleblowers Nyoka Lee and Talala Mshuja’s False Claims Act complaint alleging Corinthian Colleges violated the Higher Education Act’s (HEA) ban on recruiter-incentive compensation.    Under the HEA, the federal government distributes funds to assist with [...]

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TweetThe Boeing Company has agreed to pay $2 million to resolve claims that the company overbilled the government from 2002 to 2005 for work done at a San Antonio Plant.  According to the suit, brought under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, Boeing inflated its estimates for the number of hours required to do [...]

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TweetIn Saunders v. District of Columbia [link to opinion], Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia held that the Federal False Claims Act has a three year statute of limitations when bringing a lawsuit against the District of Columbia.  Congress recently passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which included a [...]

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Tweet Last week CNN reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took control of three of Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol plants located at: Las Piedras, Puerto Rico Fort Washington, Pa Lancaster, Pa Additionally, the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice are pursuing criminal charges against two executives for failing to comply with federally-mandated [...]

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TweetAccording to a recent Department of Justice Press Release, Ohio-based CareSource, CareSource Management Group Co., and CareSource USA Holding Co. will pay the United States and Ohio $26 million to resolve allegations that they fraudulently billed Medicaid for assessments and case management that they did not actually provide to patients.  Two former employees, Laura Rupert [...]

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TweetJudge T. S. Ellis, III denied Xe Services LLC’s motion to dismiss a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging the company defrauded the government by overcharging for its security services.  Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, came to notoriety for its controversial government contracts to supply private security in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Former employees Melan and Brad Davis, [...]

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Tweet60 Minutes interviewed former GlaxoSmithKline employee Cheryl Eckard whose reports to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) led to a federal investigation of drug maker GlaxoSmithKline and to a False Claims Act lawsuit netting Eckard $96 million.  In 2002, Eckard led a quality assurance team to evaluate a GlaxoSmithKline subsidiary’s factory located in Cidra, Puerto [...]

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TweetWashington, D.C. – As announced by the U.S. Department of Justice, four student aid lenders paid $57.75 million to resolve The Employment Law Group® law firm client Dr. Jon Oberg’s False Claims Act qui tam action alleging that lenders created billing systems allowing them to receive improperly inflated interest rate subsidies from the Department of [...]

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TweetAs reported in a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release, the DOJ has recovered $3 billion in taxpayer dollars under the False Claims Act.  Its press release states: Most of the cases resulting in recoveries were brought to the government by whistleblowers under the False Claims Act, the federal government’s primary weapon in the battle [...]

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TweetIn McNerney v. Lockheed Martin Operations Support, Inc., the court held that a whistleblower alleging wrongful termination in violation of the public policy promulgated under the False Claims Act does not have to show that the fraud she disclosed actually resulted in a loss to the government.  Judge Kays noted that that “the public policy [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Fourth Circuit’s decision in U.S. ex rel. Radcliffe v. Purdue Pharma LP where the court ruled that an employment release signed by the relator before filing a qui tam action bars that action if the government had specific knowledge of the fraud prior to [...]

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TweetThe Supreme Court has granted certiorari in Schindler Elevator Corp. v. United States ex rel. Kirk, an appeal from the Second Circuit, agreeing to decide whether Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) document requests are per se public disclosures under the False Claims Act (FCA).  The Supreme Court should affirm the Second Circuit’s ruling by holding [...]

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TweetNovartis Pharmaceuticals reached a settlement agreement totaling $422.5 million with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania regarding civil allegations under the False Claims Act and criminal allegations under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act relating to its misbranding of Trileptal®.  For information about The Employment Law Group® and its False Claims [...]

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TweetJudge Anderson of the Eastern District of Virginia ordered Nelnet, Sallie Mae, and other defendants in a qui tam whistleblower action to explore potential resolution of Jon Oberg’s claim, which we blogged about here.   One of the defendants, Brazos Higher Education Service Corp., settled the action last week.  The plaintiff is represented by Wiley Rein [...]

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TweetWTOP reports that Nebraska-based Nelnet, Sallie Mae, and several other student loan companies are exploring a potential resolution of a qui tam whistleblower lawsuit brought by TELG client Jon Oberg accusing them of defrauding the federal government.  Jon Oberg, a former Department of Education researcher, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the federal government under [...]

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TweetThe U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts held that an employee is protected from retaliation under the retaliation provision of the False Claims Act when reporting any activity that reasonably could lead to a False Claims Act (FCA) suit even when the employee is completely unaware of the FCA.  Plaintiff Christopher Gobble was [...]

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TweetThe U.S. Department of Justice filed a brief in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia rejecting Nelnet, Inc.’s contention that its settlements with the Department of Education (ED) bar Oberg’s qui tam action.  Dr. Jon H. Oberg, a former employee of the Department of Education, brought a qui tam seeking the return [...]

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TweetPrincipal Jason Zuckerman of The Employment Law Group® law firm is quoted in an article in BNA’s Daily Labor Report titled “Attorneys Agree Financial Overhaul Bill Has Vigorous Whistleblower Protections” about the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.  The Dodd-Frank Act which we blogged about here, contains [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® Law Firm principals Scott Oswald and Jason Zuckerman published an article in Law360 titled “Whistleblower Provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act.”  The article discusses the whistleblower provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.  The article is available here. For more information about The Employment Law Group® [...]

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TweetThe Employment Law Group® law firm is quoted in the lead story in The National Law Journal titled “Financial Reform Includes New Whistleblower Program.”  The article reports on the whistleblower protection provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, which we blogged about here.  The article states in part: However, employment and whistleblower [...]

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TweetRecognizing that robust whistleblower protection is critical to preventing another financial crisis, Congress included in the Dodd-Frank financial services reform bill (H.R. 4173) numerous provisions designed to encourage whistleblowing and to provide robust protection from retaliation.  These provisions create monetary awards for whistleblowers who provide original information to the SEC or CFTC, strengthen the whistleblower [...]

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TweetOn June 23, 2010, the FBI’s Los Angeles office announced that Northrop Grumman paid $12.5 million to settle allegations that it knowingly submitted false claims to several government agencies.  Northrop Grumman allegedly supplied the government with untested commercial-grade electrical components which were used in military and space applications.  The components should have been tested to [...]

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TweetOn June 18, 2010, the Washington Business Journal wrote an article discussing the False Claims Act retaliation lawsuit filed by Robert Fagg against his former employer SmithGroup.  The article is titled “Fired SmithGroup engineer files whistle-blower suit.”  Robert, a former vice president in charge of quality-control reviews, raised numerous concerns about serious defects in mechanical [...]

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TweetAccording to a Department of Justice press release dated June 4, 2010, St. Jude Medical Inc., a heart device manufacturer, Parma Community General Hospital, and Norton Healthcare have settled allegations of an illegal kickback scheme for $3.8 million.  According to the press release, the kickbacks caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care [...]

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TweetOn March 30, 2010, the Supreme Court issued an opinion widening the public disclosure bar to qui tam actions brought under the False Claims Act (FCA), holding that “the reference to ‘administrative’ reports, audits, and investigations” contained in the public disclosure bar of the FCA “encompasses disclosures made in state and local sources as well [...]

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