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A settlement has been reached to resolve False Claims Act allegations against Sandia Corporation who is accused of violating the Byrd Amendment and the False Claims Act with the improper use of federal funds.

The allegations include using federal funds for activities related to lobbying Congress and federal agencies to obtain a renewal of its Management and Operating (M&O) Contract with the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to operate the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL).  Sandia is headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMC).

Between 1993 and the present, NNSA contracted with Sandia to manage and operate the SNL, a government-owned, contractor-operated laboratory that is part of the NNSA’s nuclear weapons complex, with its main facilities located in Albuquerque and Livermore, California.  Between 2008 and 2012, Sandia allegedly used federal funds to support activities to lobby Congress and other federal officials to receive a non-competitive extension of the M&O Contract in violation of a federal law known as the Byrd Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds for lobbying.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics PC and Appalachian Orthopaedic Clinics PC. They are accused of knowingly billing state and federal health care programs for reimported osteoarthritis medications, known as viscosupplements.

Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics PC will pay $1.3 million, and Appalachian Orthopaedic Clinics PC will pay $550,000. The whistleblower will receive a $323,750 share of the recovery.

The case, filed in February 2012, alleged that the clinics knowingly purchased deeply discounted viscosupplements that were reimported from foreign countries and billed them to state and federal health care programs in order to profit from the reimbursement system, when such reimported viscosupplements were not reimbursable by those programs.  Allegedly, the reimported product included labeling in foreign languages and in English for additional uses not approved in the United States, which demonstrated that the product was reimported.  Moreover, because the product was reimported, the government alleged there was no manufacturer assurance that it had not been tampered with or that it was stored appropriately.   

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Frazier Masonry Corp, F-Y Inc, CTI Concrete & Masonry Inc, Masonry Technology Inc, Masonry Works Inc, Russell Frazier and Robert Yowell.  They are accused of misrepresenting their disadvantaged small business status in connection with military construction contracts.

The whistleblower will receive a $393,383 share of the recovery.

This settlement stems from other cases, the first of which was filed in 2012.  The United States alleged the defendant masonry subcontractors and their principals misrepresented to the prime contractors that they were small businesses, and that these misrepresentations caused the prime contractors to falsely certify that they had complied with the small business provisions of the contracts in claiming payment.  Russell Frazier previously pleaded guilty in related criminal proceedings to causing false statements.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Hencorp Becstone Capital LC  who is accused of making false statements and claims to the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) in order to obtain loan guarantees.

The whistleblowers will receive $608,000 of the settlement. 

The case, filed in February 2013, alleged that Ricardo Maza, a Peruvian-based former Hencorp business agent, created false documentation to obtain Ex-Im Bank guarantees on fictitious transactions on which no products were sold or exported, and that Hencorp acted recklessly by outsourcing key credit review functions to Maza without adequate supervision or oversight.  The government alleged that Maza then diverted the proceeds of the loans to himself and to his friends and business associates in Peru, and that the transactions resulted in losses to the Ex-Im Bank when the loans were not repaid.  In 2012, Mario Mimbella, 64, of Miami, Florida, the purported U.S.-based exporter on three of the fraudulent transactions, pled guilty to making false records for his participation in the scheme and was later sentenced to prison.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against US Investigations Services Inc (USIS) and its parent company, Altegrity, who are accused of failing to perform required quality control reviews in connection withbackground investigations that USIS held with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

According to the settlement details, the companies have agreed to forgo their right to collect payments that they claim were owed by OPM, valued at least at $30 million, in exchange for a release of liability under the False Claims Act.  

The whistleblower's portion of the recovery has not been determined.

The case, originally filed in July 2011, alleged that beginning in at least March 2008 and continuing through at least September 2012, USIS deliberately circumvented contractually required quality reviews of completed background investigations in order to increase the company’s revenues and profits.  Specifically, USIS allegedly devised a practice referred to internally as “dumping” or “flushing,” which involved releasing cases to OPM and representing them as complete when, in fact, not all the reports of investigations comprising those cases had received a contractually-required quality review.  The government contended that, relying upon USIS’ false representations, OPM issued payments and contract incentives to USIS that it would not otherwise have issued had OPM been aware that the background investigations had not gone through the quality review process required by the contracts.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Jackson-Madison County General Hospital who is accused of overbilling Medicare and Medicaid for certain cardiac procedures.

The whistleblower's portion of the settlement was not disclosed.

The lawsuit, filed in 2007, alleged that Jackson-Madison County General Hospital placed cardiac stents in patients when the procedure was not required, together with other cardiac procedures that were deemed not medically necessary. The hospital, according to allegations stemming from an investigation and a whistleblower healthcare fraud lawsuit, then billed Medicare and Medicaid.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Abbott Laboratories Inc., B. Braun Medical Inc. and Roxane Laboratories Inc. n/k/a Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. They are accused of that engaging in a scheme to report false and inflated prices for numerous pharmaceutical products.

The whistleblowers will receive approximately $88.4 million.

This whistleblower case stemmed from numerous cases filed against these pharmaceutical companies, one case goes all the way back to 1997.  The United States allged that Abbott, Roxane and Braun created artificially inflated spreads to market, promote and sell the drugs to existing and potential customers.  Because payment from the Medicare and Medicaid programs was based on the false inflated prices, the government alleged that the defendants caused false claims to be submitted to federal healthcare programs, and as a result, the government paid millions of claims for far greater amounts than it would have if Abbott, B. Braun and Roxane had reported truthful prices. 

The difference between the resulting inflated government payments and the actual price paid by healthcare providers for a drug is referred to as the “spread.”  The larger the spread on a drug, the larger the profit for the health care provider or pharmacist who gets reimbursed by the government.

A settlement has been reached to resolve False Claims Act allegations against Detroit Medical Center who is accused of engaging in improper financial relationships with referring physicians.

The government learned of the statutory violations from Detroit Medical Center, itself, which discovered improper financial relationships with a number of physicians as it prepared for the sale to Vanguard Health Systems Inc.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against St. Joseph Medical Center (SJMC) in Towson, MD who is accused of paing unlawful remuneration in a series of professional services contracts with MidAtlantic Cardiovascular Associates (MACVA).

The whistleblowers recovery amounts were not disclosed.

The original lawsuit was filed in June 2010 and it alleged that SJMC paid kickbacks to MidAtlantic under the guise of professional services agreements, in return for MACVA’s referrals to the medical center of lucrative cardiovascular procedures, including cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology procedures, over the period from Jan. 1, 1996, to Jan. 1, 2006. The settlement agreement resolves issues relating to 11 professional services agreements between MidAtlantic and St. Joseph under which MACVA received payments above fair market value, for services not rendered or that were not commercially reasonable and were entered into for the purpose of inducing referrals by MACVA to SJMC.

Under the settlement the hospital also agrees to settle allegations that it received from federal health benefit programs between Jan. 1, 2008, and May 12, 2009, for medically unnecessary stents performed by Mark Midei, M.D., a one time partner in MACVA who was later employed by SJMC.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Mercy Health Springfield Communities, formerly known as St. John’s Health System Inc., and Mercy Clinic Springfield Communities, formerly known as St. John’s Clinic.  They are accused of engaging in improper financial relationships with referring physicians.

The whsitleblower will receive $825,000 from the recovery.

Originally filed in 2013, the lawsuit allges that the defendants submitted false claims to the Medicare program for services rendered to patients referred by physicians who received bonuses based on a formula that improperly took into account the value of the physicians’ referrals of patients to the clinic.  Federal law restricts the financial relationships that hospitals and clinics may have with doctors who refer patients to them.