With great anticipation, the SEC adopted its final regulations governing the new whistleblower program under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. Most significantly, the SEC did away with a proposed requirement that whistleblowers first report wrongdoing internally before reporting to the SEC, despite strong opposition from corporate lobbyists.
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania became the first municipal government in Pennsylvania and the fourth nationwide to adopt a false claims act. The new ordinance, based generally on the Federal False Claims Act allows a private individual to file a complaint for false claims after the county Solicitor has investigated the allegations of the complaint and declined to intervene.
According to a report in the Huffington Post, recent confidential federal audits accuse the nation’s five largest mortgage companies of defrauding taxpayers in their handling of foreclosures on homes purchased with government-backed loans.
In Schindler Elevator v. United States ex rel. Kirk, the United States Supreme Court held that a federal agency’s written response to a FOIA request for records constitutes a “report” within the meaning of the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar.
Changes to the law in 2006 guaranteed whistleblowers between 15 and 30 percent of any IRS recovery based upon information provided by a whistleblower. More recent changes guarantee that the IRS receives its cut of these whistleblower payouts. The IRS has announced that it intends to withhold taxes from the whistleblower award payments that it makes.
United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy and the Department of Justice announced that ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc. (ABN) has agreed upon a settlement with the United States government valued at over $41 million evolving from a False Claims Act case in connection with over 28,000 federally insured mortgages. This payment by ABN is one of the largest ever acquired in a civil settlement by the U.S.
Senators Charles Grassey (Republican – Iowa) and Patrick Leahy (Democrat – Vermont) have introduced a bill to fellow members of the Senate Judiciary Committee which, if passed, would redirect a fraction of the money recovered through fraud cases back into the Justice Department to help with their anti-fraud enforcement activities.
The United State Department of Justice has announced that Shell Oil Company, Shell Offshore Inc., Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Inc., and Shell Western Exploration and Production have come to an agreement regarding the False Claims Act charges filed against them. The Shell Defendants will pay the United States $2.2 million plus interest to resolve claims that the Shell companies violated the False Claims Act by deliberately underpaying royalties owed on natural gas produced from Federal leases.
Dyncorp International LLC and its subcontractor, The Sandi Group, were charged with allegations of submitting false claims for payment under Dyncorp’s contract with the Department of State to provide civilian police training in Iraq. The qui tam lawsuit was filed by two former TSG employees, which alleged that Dyncorp was submitting inflated claims for the construction of container camps at various locations in Iraq and that TSG was seeking reimbursement for danger pay that it falsely claimed to have paid its U.S.
Masoncare Health Center, an inpatient and outpatient healthcare facility, was charged with violating the False Claims Act and will pay the government almost $450,000 to resolve the allegations. Masoncare was improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid for injections of leuprolide acetate, or Lupron. The medication is used to treat prostate cancer in men and endometriosis and fibroids in women.
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.