On Friday, October 19, after being found guilty by the federal court for misusing government funds intended for HIV/AIDS research granted to the College by the National Institute of Health, Weill Cornell Medical College settled with the government and a whistleblower in the amount of $1.6 million. A former Cornell research fellow,
A civil suit was filed under the Federal False Claims Act on behalf of the US Government alleging that Bank of America Corporation, the second-biggest United States bank by assets, has burdened the American taxpayers with losses after they tainted the quality of home loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
Federal officials will investigate this year the safeguards pharmaceutical companies have in place to keep Medicare Part D beneficiaries from using manufacturers’ coupons to pay copayments for their prescriptions, according to a recent report.
The project is one of several new Part D-related initiatives that the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Inspector General announced in its fiscal year 2013 Work Plan.
MARC S. RASPANTI, partner of Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP, has become a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, one of the premier legal associations in America.
The induction ceremony at which Mr. Raspanti became a Fellow took place recently before an audience of approximately 1,070 persons during the recent 2012 Annual Meeting of the College at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York,
On October 19, 2012, the United States Department of Justice filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Jacintoport International LLC in connection with a government contract. Jacintoport is a cargo handling and stevedoring firm headquartered in Houston, TX. Jacintoport entered into a contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007 for the storage and redelivery of humanitarian food aid.
The new Securities and Exchange Commission whistleblower office received almost 3,000 tips in its first year, MarketWatch reported on Thursday.
SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar told enforcement officials gathered for an event that the whistleblower office, which opened in August 2011, receives an average of eight tips a day,
Companies that retaliate against whistleblowers may have to answer to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sean McKessy, chief of the SEC’s Whistleblower Office said last week that his office is “actively on the lookout…for some of the more aggressive” treatment of whistleblowers, according to BNA. McKessy said the SEC is “paying a lot of attention to” employment and severance agreements that might discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.
A sponsor of a Medicare prescription-drug plan has agreed to pay the U.S. government $5.25 million to settle claims that it gave the government false information about drug pricing to lure consumers into signing up for its plan.
The settlement, announced this week in New York, is among the first involving claims brought under the False Claims Act for alleged fraud in the Medicare Part D program.
The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is teaming with a New York law firm to build a global whistle-blower practice, Reuters reported this week.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, 60, who left the ICC in June after nine years, will be working with Getnick & Getnick to bring whistle-blower cases that originate in foreign countries.
Federal and state governments recovered more than $9 billion in fiscal year 2012 from cases brought under the federal False Claims Act and similar state laws, a leading watchdog group reported this week.
Health-care fraud led to the bulk of FCA recoveries, according to the report from Taxpayers Against Fraud.
If you are aware of any person, corporation or entity that you think may be violating the Federal False Claims Act or a State False Claims Act, contact us today.