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.
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.
California Govenor, Jerry Brown, recently signed into law AB 2492, amending California’s False Claims Act to “better conform it to requirements of the federal False Claims Act.”
The amended law becomes effective on January 1st, 2013. Some of the key changes include an award of up to 50% for the whistleblower from the proceeds ultimately paid out by the defendant.
Please RSVP to Sarah Bentzel at SLB@Pietragallo.com or 215.988.1469
by October 25th, 2012.
Background
On September 5, 2012, the Second Circuit issued its decision in U.S. ex rel. Feldman v. Van Gorp., 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 18667 (2nd Cir. Sept. 5, 2012), a case with important implications for the “materiality” standard under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) as well as the issue of how to properly calculate FCA damages.
Dennis Lerner, a former international examiner in the New York office of the IRS, has been charged by federal officials with disclosing the identity of a whistleblower.
Shortly prior to his resignation from the IRS, Lerner conducted an audit of an international bank related to approximately $1 billion in allegedly unreported income.
