A report recently released by the Government Accountability Office (Congress’ investigational arm) found that recruiters at for-profit colleges in the United States lied to entice students to apply and encouraged them to commit fraud to qualify for government-backed financial aid.
On August 3, 2010, Panalpina Inc., one of the world’s leading forwarding and logistics services, agreed to settle a False Claims Act suit filed several years ago by a whistleblower on behalf of the U.S. government.
Last week, Tenet Healthcare acknowledged, in a regulatory filing, that the United States Department of Justice is investigating whether one of Tenet’s hospitals fraudulently billed Medicare for heart defibrillator implant surgeries. The D.O.J. probe dates to March 2010, when it issued a demand to Tenet under the False Claims Act seeking information and patient records detailing Tenet’s submissions for implantable heart defibrillator procedures as far back as 2002.
On August 2, 2010, Hewlett-Packard announced that it reached an agreement in principle with the United States Department of Justice to settle both an ongoing government investigation and two False Claims Act suits related to allegations that HP, Accenture, and Sun Microsystems paid millions of dollars in unlawful kickbacks to secure government technology contracts.
The Center for Diagnostic Imaging (“CDI”), one of the nation’s largest providers of diagnostic imaging services for doctors and hospitals, recently agreed to pay at least $1.2 million to settle an allegation of Medicaid billing fraud. CDI’s decision to settle followed on the heels of the federal government’s announcement last week that it intended to intervene and pursue the billing fraud issue on behalf of whistleblowers Dr.
Wilfred Van Gorp, widely known for his declaration that Oddfather Vincent (Chin) Gigante was truly crazy, a claim later soundly rejected based on recorded telephone conversations, was found by a Manhattan federal jury, along with Cornell University, to have violated the federal False Claims Act.
A former loan officer for Bank of America has sued the company for taking money from borrowers who were seeking to refinance their mortgages and then failing to follow through by actually processing the applications.
Universal Health Services, one of the nation’s largest healthcare management companies, is embroiled in a suit pending in Sacramento County, California related to allegations brought by private whistleblowers under California’s False Claims Act that the company bilked the state of public money through special education schools the company owns.
Maryland Lieutenant Governer, Anthony Brown, presently campaigning with Martin O’Malley for re-election this fall, announced that the state’s health department has uncovered $26 million in fraud and waste within the state’s Medicaid program for fiscal year 2010.
On Wednesday, July 21, 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The law provides sweeping new consumer protections in the form of ending certain predatory consumer lending and providing stricter regulatory oversight of consumer credit mortgages.
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.