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On January 31, Pennsylvania senators Kristin Phillips-Hill and Lindsey M. Williams announced that they plan to reintroduce legislation this session that will serve as a Pennsylvania False Claims Act. The Commonwealth Fraud Prevention Act for Taxpayer Accountability (“CFPA”) as it’s called was introduced last session and modeled after the Federal False Claims Act. This year […]

On January 24, 2023, the United States Attorney’s Office announced that Triumph Actuation Systems, a company that designs and manufacturers mechanical and actuation components for commercial and U.S. military aircraft and military systems agreed to pay $478,586 to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. The federal government alleged that from April 1, […]

On January 30, the United States Attorney’s Office released a statement announcing that International Vitamin Corporation (“IVC”), a leading importer of dietary supplements agreed to settle one of the largest cases ever involving customs fraud under the False Claims Act. IVC will pay the United States government a whopping $22.8 million dollars to resolve claims […]

On Friday, January 20, the Department of Justice released a statement that medical device manufacturer DePuy Synthes, Inc., a subsidiary of conglomerate Johnson & Johnson, agreed to pay approximately $9.75 million to settle allegations that DePuy violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act by providing an orthopedic surgeon with $100,000 worth of free products […]

The United States Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on two consolidated cases involving alleged False Claims Act (“FCA”) violations by supermarket pharmacies. The whistleblowers in the two cases, U.S. ex rel. Proctor v. Safeway, Inc. and U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu Inc., allege that the defendant pharmacies violated Medicare/Medicaid regulations, and overcharged […]

It seems like an eternity ago, but during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States government implemented the Paycheck Protection Program, more commonly known as PPP, to provide cash flow assistance to small businesses through 100% federally guaranteed loans to employers who maintained their payroll during the pandemic. PPP was part of the […]

In October of 2021, the Department of Justice launched the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative (the “Initiative”). The Initiative is an effort by the Biden administration to increase security over the federal government’s data and digital systems after the April 2021 security breach of government contractor SolarWinds’ software. The SolarWinds breach allowed hackers to access the Cybersecurity […]

Three health care providers in California have agreed to pay $22.5 million pursuant to two settlement agreements in order to resolve claims that they violated the federal False Claims Act and the state False Claims Act by submitting false claims to Medi-Cal related to Medicaid Adult Expansion under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. […]

On December 14, 2022, the Department of Justice announced in a statement that Academy Mortgage Corporation, a mortgage company based in Draper, Utah, agreed to pay $38.5 million to settle False Claims Act allegations related to mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). A former underwriter of Academy Mortgage Corporation blew the whistle by […]

The False Claims Act (“FCA”) has long included protections from retaliation for whistleblowers who engage in conduct in furtherance of a lawsuit under the qui tam provision of the Act. Section 3730(h) of the FCA, the “Relief from retaliatory actions” provision, entitled an employee to relief if that employee was retaliated against by their employer […]