Category: Federal False Claims Act
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.
Peter Budetti, director of Program Integrity at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has focused his attention on fraud prevention, detection, and prosecution. On average, between $70 billion and $234 billion is lost annually due to healthcare fraud. Obama’s administration has also committed resources to minimizing fraud.
The number one state for healthcare fraud is Florida,
The Justice Department has intervened in a qui tam lawsuit originally filed in September of 2009 against ambulance company Rural/Metro Corp., alleging the company fraudulently billed Medicare and Medicaid for services provided to dialysis patients which were either not necessary or not rendered. The suit, brought by a former employee of Rural/Metro subsidiary Rural/Metro of Central Alabama,
Senator Chuck Grassley, a champion of qui tam whistleblower protection is co-sponsoring legislation to update the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act originally co-authored by Senator Grassley. The law currently provides protection from retaliation to federal employees who expose possible waste, fraud and abuse in federal agencies. Grassley’s proposed updates would restore federal employee whistleblower protections,
Telecommunications giant Verizon Communications, Inc. paid the United States $93,525,410.96 amid allegations that subsidiary MCI Communications Services, Inc. fraudulently overcharged the General Services Administration (GSA) for voice and data telecommunications services contracts. The government alleges that MCI billed the GSA for various federal, state and local taxes and surcharges, violating the terms of their contract and regulations in connection with FTS2001 and FTS 2001 Bridge contracts.
The Justice Department recently filed a False Claims Act action against engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc., the prime contractor on the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program III contract. As the prime contractor, KBR provided logistics support services to US troops stationed in Iraq. Prior to the filing of the False Claims Act action,
In 2005, Guidant (now a division of Boston Scientific) admitted to knowing for three years that their Ventak Prizm heart defibrilator could short circuit, leading to both unnecessary shocks to the heart as well failures to shock when necessary, but the medical device giant did nothing to alert physicians or the public.
In a split 2-1 decision March 28th, the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the automatic 60 day sealing provision of the False Claims Act. The suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Government Accountability Project and OMB Watch, alleges the secrecy unlawfully blocks the public’s access to judicial proceedings and violates the whistleblower’s right to freedom of speech by forbidding them to discuss the misconduct.
