At a speech last week, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen announced changes aimed at creating better relations between whistleblowers and the IRS’s whistleblower program. The changes include a 70% increase in staff at the IRS whistleblower office – 31 new employees – to handle whistleblower filings. Mr. Koskinen’s remarks follow new whistleblower regulations designed to provide more information to whistleblowers with pending claims and pay more money to those with substantiated cases.
The Eighth Circuit had previously stated that one who files a lawsuit under the False Claims Act must provide examples of the allegedly fraudulent conduct. Last week, the court seemed to back away from this position in United States ex. rel. Thayer v.
The First Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that False Claims Act defendants can deduct portions of their civil settlement payments if the parties have not, in negotiating a settlement, agreed to the tax consequences and the payment is considered compensatory as opposed to punitive.
The New York Times published an article noting that, despite huge investments in preventing Medicare fraud—up to $600 million a year—fraud against the program persists to the tune of $60 billion, which is equivalent to 10% of Medicare’s cost. For example, last year, the federal government was only able to recover $4.3 billion.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel G. Martin of the Northern District of Illinois recently issued an opinion that sanctioned a defense attorney for badgering a whistleblower during her deposition. The ruling serves as a reminder to potential whistleblowers of the difficulties in coming forward with evidence of fraud but also that the courts can be approached to ensure fairness in such litigation.
Life Care Services (Life Care) and CoreCare V (CoreCare) have agreed to pay the Department of Justice $3.75 million to settle allegations of false claims for billing for unreasonable or unnecessary rehabilitation therapy through RehabCare Group East (RehabCare), a rehabilitation therapy provider they hired to provide rehabilitation therapy services. The Department of Justice alleged that Life Care and Core Care failed to prevent RehabCare from providing unreasonable or unnecessary therapy to patients in order to increase Medicare reimbursements to the facilities.
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee has ordered a contractor who violated the False Claims Act to pay more than $700,000 in damages even through the contractor provided the government with the product it purchased.
In United States ex rel. Brian Wall v.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has denied Merck’s attempt to obtain dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the drug company of violating the False Claims Act by providing the government with false information regarding the effectiveness of its mumps vaccine.
According to a federal district court in Georgia, the attorney-client privilege is waived when one responds to an accusation of illegal activity with the contention that the conduct in question was legal.
In Barker v. Columbus Regional Healthcare System, Inc., No. 4:12-cv-108 (M.D. Ga.
Bank of America will be paying the federal government, California, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New York and Kentucky a total of $9,650,000,000.00 to resolve claims arising out of the packaging, origination, marketing, sale, structuring, arrangement and issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations by Bank of America, Countrywide, Merrill Lynch and Franklin Financial Corporation.
