Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Interior Dept. Employees charge Fraud; Inspector General says Agency tolerates Corruption

Two stories that appeared in the New York Times this week report widespread fraud and corruption in the U.S. Department of Interior’s handling of oil and gas leases on federal land. Both stories were written by reporter Edmund L. Andrews.

The first, which appeared September 14, reports that the Interior Department’s chief official responsible for investigating abuses and overseeing operations accused the top officials at the agency of tolerating widespread ethical failures, from cronyism to cover-ups of incompetence. “Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior,” charged Earl E. Devaney, the Interior Department’s inspector general. Click the following link to read the full account of Devaney’s charges.

The second story, appearing in the Septmber 22 editions of the Times, reports that four government auditors who monitor leases for oil and gas on federal property say the Interior Department suppressed their efforts to recover millions of dollars from companies they charged with cheating the government. Most of the accusations were made in four lawsuits that were unsealed the previous week by federal judges in Oklahoma. Click the following link to read the full story on the auditors’ accusations.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Force Protection settles Fraud Case with $1.8 Million Payout

South Carolina defense contractor Force Protection, which makes armored vehicles for the Pentagon, has agreed to pay the government $1.8 million to resolve allegations brought in a whistleblower lawsuit, U.S. Attorney Reginald I. Lloyd said Wednesday.

The suit claimed Force Protection Inc. “failed to advance payments to expedite production of armored vehicles for the U.S. military,” Lloyd said in a news release. The company, whose vehicles are used Afghanistan and Iraq to find and remove bombs, denied any wrongdoing.

Click the following link to read the full story on the false claims settlement in Myrtle Beach Online.

U.S. joins Suit against Dey, Inc.

The U.S. has intervened in a whistleblower suit filed in the District of Massachusetts against Dey, Inc., alleging that the pharmaceutical company violated the False Claims Act. In its complaint, the government alleges that Dey engaged in a scheme to report fraudulent and inflated prices for several pharmaceutical products, knowing that federal healthcare programs established reimbursement rates based on those reported prices.

The government’s complaint alleges that Medicare and Medicaid have reimbursed Dey’s customers in excess of $500 million for the drugs which are the subject of the complaint. Dey sells generic drugs that are reimbursed by the two federal healthcare programs. The investigation began after the filing of a civil False Claims Act suit by a Florida home-infusion company, Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys Inc. and its principals.

Click the following link to read the Justice Department’s press release on this false claims act suit.

Halliburton Subsidiary charged with Fraud in Iraq

A federal whistleblower claims Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root charged millions to the government for recreational services never provided to U.S. troops in Iraq, including giant tubs of chicken wings and tacos, a widescreen TV, and cheese sticks meant for a military Super Bowl party

Instead, KBR used the military’s supplies for its own football party, according to a federal suit unsealed today.

The suit was filed last year by former KBR employee Julie McBride. It claims the giant defense contractor billed the government for thousands of meals it never served, inflated the number of soldiers using its fitness and Internet centers, and regularly siphoned off great quantities of supplies destined for American soldiers. Click the following link to the read the full Associated Press account on the Iraq fraud suit.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

U.S. joins Fraud Suit against California Drug Firm

The Justice Department joined a False Claims Act lawsuit yesterday alleging that Dey (Napa, CA), a maker of generic respiratory drugs, was overpaid by Medicare and state Medicaid programs by more than $500 million since 1993 because the company reported false prices for its products.

Ven-A-Care of Key West, FL, filed the initial whistleblower complaint. The home-infusion company has successfully settled several similar whistleblower suits against drugmakers and other healthcare companies. Click the following link for modernhealthcare.com’s story on the False Claims Act charges.

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