To date, the District of Columbia and two other states have adopted some form of a false claims act. Although two municipalities – Philadelphia and Allegheny County – have adopted legislation which prohibits city or county contractors from submitting false claims for reimbursement – the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has yet to adopt a law which applies to individuals and/or companies who submit fraudulent requests for payment to the state.
In the largest drug safety settlement ever by a generic drug manufacturer, Ranbaxy USA, Inc. (“Ranbaxy”), a subsidiary of the Indian generic drug manufacturer Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, agreed to pay $500 million to resolve a whistleblower lawsuit and criminal charges that it manufactured and distributed adulterated drugs which it sold in the U.S.
C.R. Bard, Inc., a New Jersey-based drug manufacturer, agreed to pay $48.26 million to the United States to resolve allegations that it violated the FCA by providing illegal remuneration to physicians and potential customers to induce them to purchase its brachytherapy seeds used to treat prostate cancer.
Judge Maurice B. Foley, a U.S. Tax Court judge, slammed the IRS for its handling of the cases of two whistleblowers who were denied awards after submitting whistleblower claims against their employers.
The two whistleblowers, who remain anonymous, appealed the dismissal of their awards claims in November 2012.
For many years, strict secrecy laws in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands allowed US taxpayers a low-risk way to evade taxes. In 2008, a whistleblower from UBS provided the government with the names of thousands of UBS clients who were hiding money to lower their tax bills. This disclosure substantially increased the IRS’ already heavy case load and prompted the agency to institute an amnesty program that allowed tax evaders to avoid jail time if they agreed to pay the full amount of the taxes owed and a 20% penalty.
The United States has filed suit against Vitas Hospice Services LLC and Vitas Healthcare Corporation for the submission of false claims for hospice care. Vitas provides services in 18 states and is the largest for-profit hospice chain in the country. Medicare hospice benefits are available to patients who are terminally ill and whose life expectancy is 6 months or less.
The US DOJ announced that it is intervening in a qui tam whistleblower case under the False Claims Act against Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation. The suit alleges that from 2001- 2011, Novartis marketed Cardiovascular drugs, including Lotrel, Valturna, Starlix, Texturna, Diovan and Exforge, through a variety of “pay to play” schemes that involved kick-backs to physicians to encourage them to continue to prescribe these drugs.
The federal government accused cycling legend Lance Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service when he doped to win the Tour de France.
In a complaint filed in federal court in the District of Columbia, the government asserted that Armstrong violated the federal False Claims Act and would be “unjustly enriched” if allowed to retain the money he received from the Postal Service.
A California biotech company will pay almost $25 million to settle claims that it paid illegal kickbacks to boost prescriptions of a drug for treating anemia, the Department of Justice announced this week.
Amgen, Inc. will pay $17.8 million to the federal government and $7.
Independence Blue Cross (“IBC”) announced on April 10, 2013, that it agreed to sell 20% of IBC’s New Jersey health insurance subsidiary, AmeriHealth New Jersey, to Cooper University Health Care (“Cooper”) of Camden, NJ.
