Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Businesses Win and Lose in Recent Supreme Court Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court delivered a mixed verdict on how to interpret the federal False Claims Act in a decision last week in the case brought against Allison Engine Company. The court rejected an expanisve interpretation of the whistleblower law that would have extended liability to almost any company in any industry. But in a victory for the government, the court held for the first time that the law applies to subcontractors on federal projects. Until now, subcontractors could not be sued under the federal False Claims Act.

Click the following link to read the full account of the Allison Engine decision in law.com.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Walgreen Co. Agrees to $35M Settlement

Illinois-based Walgreen Co. has agreed to pay $35 million to settle claims that it improperly switched patients to different versions of prescription drugs in order to increase its reimbursement from Medicaid.  Whistleblower Bernard Listiza, a licenced pharmacist in Washington, D.C. filed the initial lawsuit in 2003 and will receive approximately $5 million in the qui tam suit.  The federal share of the settlement is approximately $18.6 million.  46 states and Puerto Rico will share approximately $16.4 million under separate settlement agreements.

Click here to read the full article in Mississippi’s Clarion-Ledger, Walgreens agrees to $35M settlement.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

US Sues European Transportation Firms for Bid Rigging

The US has intervened in two lawsuits that allege a conspiracy to rig bids for contracts to transport household goods belonging to the military and Department of Defense personnel between Europe and the United States.  Gosselin Worldwide Moving, a Belgian company, as well as four German moving companies, Bikart Globistics GmbH & Co. Logistik und Service KG; ITO Möbel Transport GmbH; Viktoria INternational Spedition; and Andrea Christ Spedition & Möbeltransport GmbH are alleged to have participated in the scheme.

Additionally, The Pasha Group, an American transportation company, and its subsidiaries, American MOPAC International and Gateways International, and employees Missy Donnelly and George Pasha, have paid the United States $13 million to resolve the claims brought against them that they had agreed to Gosselin’s scheme to rig bids.

The lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court by Kurt Bunk and Daniel Heuser, two German citizens who worked with one of the German companies, and by Ray Ammons, who owned an American freight forwarding company.  As a result of the settlement, they will be paid $2.6 million as their share of the $13 million settlement with the Pasha Group.

Click here to read the full article on 7thSpace.com, U.S. Sues European Transportation Firms for Bid Rigging.

Whistleblower's Claims Led To Probe

A California college must repay about $107,000 in state funding after investigators discovered that the college false collected funding for music-therapy courses at convalescent homes.  The Cuyamaca College courses, taught in 2004-2005, consisted of an instructor performing music during lunch at the facility.  The state has ordered the college to return $87,359 as a result.  Additionally, an instructor overstated the number of hours taught, and another instructor did not maintain proper attendance records.

In 2005, a whistleblower complained about the college’s off-site, non-credit courses.  An investigation followed.

Click here to read Leonel Sanchez’s article in the Union-Tribune, Whistleblower’s Claims Led to Probe.

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