Category: News

Media Overlooks Defense False Claims Case In today’s world, false claims cases brought against companies that are worth millions of dollars are often overshadowed by those that are worth billions.  This was certainly so with a recent case involving national security and defense issues. The $4.3 million settlement announced last month between Boeing and the...

Congress Exploring More Efficient Whistleblower Statutes On January 27th, Richard Miller, the Senior Labor Advisor to Congressman George Miller, held a conference call with several prominent qui tam attorneys to discuss the possibility of changes to the current statutes on private sector whistleblower and qui tam lawsuits. One of the participants was Brandon Lauria, an...

FDA Caught Spying on Potential Whistleblowers Last week, it was revealed that litigation was filed against the Food and Drug Administration for conducting secret monitoring and surveillance activities of its own employees, scientists, and doctors. Many personal employee files and e-mails were gathered by the FDA in response to communications with Congress about unsafe medical...

Grimm’s Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2011 The proposed H.R. 2483, known as The Whistleblower Improvement Act of 2011 is poised to move through congress this year, and was recently approved by a subpanel of the House Financial Services Committee.It is now under consideration by the full committee.The bill, introduced in July 2011 by Rep. Michael...

Whistleblowers Provide Backbone to Case Against Healthcare Fraud On Thursday, September 1, the Department of Justice reported that the United States government had settled a False Claims case with Janzen, Johnston & Rockwell Emergency Medicine Management Services Inc. (JJ&R), which is a provider of billing services for physicians, hospitals and other health care providers. JJ&R...

Fear of Political Pressure Influences IRS Resistance to Whistleblower Cases In recent years, whistleblower cases have proven to be essential to the battle against tax fraud in the United States. In 2006, Congress passed a provision that would allow citizens to file claims with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to recover lost tax revenue that...

Scathing GAO Report on Whistleblowers Prompts New Pressure on IRS In September 2011, the Governmental Accountability Office released its review of the progress being made toward a more efficient whistleblower program within the Internal Revenue Service. The review showed that immediately there was a positive public reaction to the program, with thousands of new whistleblowers...

GAO Report Wants More Time-Efficient IRS Whistleblower Program In August 2011, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published its conclusions on the effectiveness of the Internal Revenue Service’s whistleblower program and how it could be improved. This program was a part of the newly expanded whistleblower legislation that passed Congress as the Tax Relief and Health...

Oracle Pays $200 Million in False Claims Act Settlement When will Oracle learn? In October 2011, the software giant has agreed to pay $200 million to the U.S. government in response to allegations that the company was overcharging the federal government, specifically the General Services Administration (GSA), for products that were sold at a cheaper...