A federal judge has increased the share that a whistleblower will receive from a $93.5 million settlement that resulted from his efforts.  The whistleblower filed a qui tam case in 2007 alleging that Verizon had impermissibly charged the federal government for surcharges which were already included in its telecommunications contract.  The government had minimized the whistleblower’s role, but U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler found that the relator’s expertise, experience, and time spent on the case merited a higher award of 20 percent–$5.1 million more than he originally received.  “[I]t is just not accurate to say that all that Relator provided was ‘an educated guess,’” Judge Kessler wrote.  “This is a profoundly unfair characterization of the nature and extent of the expertise, experience, knowledge, analysis, and just plain hard work that Shea, and his lawyers, contributed to this litigation.” Judge Kessler stated that the whistleblower not only saved the government both time and resources, but he also brought the government’s attention to a fraud it would not otherwise have uncovered.

Read the entire article, “D.C. Judge Orders Government To Pay Whistleblower Millions More”