The United States has once more sued Novartis, a Swiss drug maker, alleging millions of dollars worth of illegal kickbacks. Authorities say that for nearly a decade the company paid kickbacks, allegedly including a dinner for three that nearly topped $10,000, to induce doctors to prescribe Novartis drugs, including the hypertension drugs Lotrel and Valturna…
Federal Government Joins Lawsuit Alleging Trade Act Violations
A recently unsealed lawsuit against Florida-based Capitol Supply Inc. alleges that the company sold Chinese-manufactured office supplies to federal agencies in violation of the Trade Agreements Act. If proven, Capitol Supply could be liable for submitting false claims to the government, because the company certified in its contracts that it was selling only materials originating…
Amgen to Pay $24.9 Million for Aranesp Kickbacks
Amgen Inc. has agreed to pay $24.9 million to resolve allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks. According to the allegations, Amgen paid kickbacks in the form of rebates to long-term care pharmacies, including Omnicare Inc., in order to encourage those pharmacies to switch Medicare and Medicaid patients to its…
Three Convictions for Home Healthcare Fraud
The DOJ, in separate press releases today, announced three convictions for Medicare fraud by individuals working in the home healthcare industry. In Louisiana, Louis and Verna Age were convicted by a jury for their roles in a $17.1 million Medicare fraud scheme. In Miami, Vladimir Jiminez pled guilty to taking part in a health care…
Failure to Heed Whistleblower Costs UC Irvine $1.2 Million
For years prior to his retirement from the medical center at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), Dr. Dennis O’Connor warned university officials about flaws he perceived in the hospital’s Medicare billing practices. But when the university failed to act on those warnings—“it just disappeared,” O’Connor said of an internal report on the matter—O’Connor exercised…
Three Contractors Settle CIA Kickback Allegations
American Systems Corporation, Anixter International Inc., and Corning Cable Systems LLC will pay a combined $3 million to settle claims brought against them under the federal False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Act. The government alleged that the three contractors, working in concert, offered gifts to CIA employees and consultants in order to influence contract…
Par Pharmaceuticals Pleads Guilty, Pays $45 Million in Off-Label Marketing Case
Parallel civil and criminal cases against Par Pharmaceuticals Company Inc. came to a close today as the company entered a guilty plea and agreed to a civil settlement worth tens of millions of dollars. Par admitted to misbranding its drug Megace ES, which was approved by the FDA for the treatment of AIDS-related weight loss,…
Federal False Claims Act Turns 150
Today is a significant milestone for U.S. whistleblower law: it has been 150 years since Abraham Lincoln signed the False Claims Act, empowering private citizens to sue on behalf of the government for fraud. The Act was passed to address widespread fraud by suppliers of the Union Army; today, as readers of this blog know,…
United States Joins FCA Suit Against Lance Armstrong
Today the federal government announced its decision to intervene in what is surely one of the most star-studded FCA cases in recent memory: the qui tam suit filed against Lance Armstrong by his former teammate Floyd Landis. The government claims a financial interest in the highly publicized doping saga because of the multimillion-dollar sponsorship deal…
After FCA Housing Settlement, Study Shows Racial Discrimination Persists
In 2009, Westchester County settled a federal False Claims Act suit by agreeing to build hundreds of moderate-income housing units and market them to racial minorities in the New York metro area. The qui tam plaintiff, nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center, had alleged that the county’s applications for federal Community Development Block Grants contained material misstatements: boilerplate…