Thursday, November 30, 2006

Halliburton Unit to pay $8 Million for Overbilling

A Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay the government $8 million to resolve accusations of overbilling related to the firm’s work for the Army in the Balkans, the Justice Department said yesterday. The allegations against KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root, stemmed from orders placed with 10 foreign subcontractors that were working for KBR on military logistics support in 1999 and 2000. The accusations, made under the federal False Claims Act, included double-billing, inflating prices and providing products that didn’t fit the Army’s needs during the construction of Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

Click the following link to read the Washington Post account of the false claims settlement with the Halliburton subsidiary.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Iowa Senator called Champion of Whistleblowers

A feature in the Austin (TX) American-Statesman yesterday commends Iowa Senator Charles Grassley for using federal whilstleblower laws to ferret out government waste and fraud.

The story, written by Jeff Nesmith of the newspaper’s Washington Bureau, says Grassley has become Congress’s expert on whistleblowers and how to protect them, support them and take advantage of what they know and want to tell. Click the following link to read Nesmith’s full profile on the champion of whistleblowers.

Workers contend Contractors defrauded Government in Nuclear Cleanup

A four-year-old lawsuit unsealed last month contends contractors cleaning up a Cold War uranium-enrichment plant in southern Ohio were paid millions of dollars for shoddy work or work that was not done, according to an Associated Press story out of Columbus, OH.

The lawsuit accuses Bechtel-Jacobs Co. and Safety and Ecology Corp. of falsifying work records, taking shortcuts and failing to protect the health of workers and neighbors of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The facility, near Piketon, about 60 miles south of Columbus, produced enriched uranium for 50 years and closed in 2001.

The four workers who filed the lawsuit - Philip Borris, Michael Eversole, Rodney Gossett and Thomas McDermott - did so using a Civil War-era law designed to nab suppliers cheating the government. The case was kept secret while the Department of Justice investigated. It recently decided not to join in. Click the following link for the AP story on the alleged fraud.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Omnicare settles Whistleblower Suit for $49.5 Million

Omnicare, Inc., which calls itself “the nation’s leading provider of pharmaceutical care for seniors,” will pay $49.5 million to settle charges that it illegally switched the drugs of senior citizens in nursing homes and other facilities.  The charges primarily involved the generic forms of the popular drugs Zantac(r) and Prozac(r).

The fraud claims were contained in lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago by the federal government and two whistleblowers who formerly were employees of Omnicare. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald announced the settlement saying that with heavy money penalties and “the increasing willingness of corporate insiders to report fraud, companies that cheat federal and state governments risk, at a minimum, potentially crippling financial losses.”

Click the following link to read the International Herald Tribune’s version of the Associated Press account.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

New Whistleblower Law increases Risks and Compliance Requirements for Companies

An article in mondaq.com written by Joseph F. Savage, Jr. explains how the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 ("DRA") imposes new requirements on companies and threatens to increase whistleblower activity.

Savage writes that although the law applies directly to healthcare-related entities that make or receive more than $5 million in state Medicaid payments, it is likely to have a substantial impact beyond the healthcare industry. For the first time, such healthcare businesses will be required to tell all employees about the opportunities and protections for whistleblowers.

Click the following link to read the article in mondaq.com.

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