False Claims Act

Dominion Oklahoma Texas Exploration & Production Inc. and Marathon Oil Company have agreed to pay the United States $2,219,9674.98 and $4,697,476.57, respectively, to resolve claims that the two companies separately violated the False Claims Act by knowingly underpaying royalties owed on natural gas produced from federal and Indian leases.

The federal government has intervened and filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Oracle Corporation and Oracle America Inc. The government alleges that Oracle defrauded the United States on a General Services Administration (“GSA”) software contract that was in effect from 1998 to 2006 and involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

Sodexo is among the world’s largest food services companies and the world’s largest private food purchaser, with more than 313,000 employees serving 6,000 clients. Now, Sodexo has agreed to pay $20 million for overcharging 21 New York school districts and the SUNY system. 

The federal government has filed False Claims Act counterclaims against Saehan Bank and crossclaims against Steve Yong Kim and Young Soon Kim in the Northern District of Oklahoma. The United States also filed a counterclaim and crossclaim under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act.

Cochlear Americas, a Colorado-based cochlear implant manufacturer, has agreed to pay $880,000 to resolve allegations that it paid illegal remuneration to health care providers to induce purchases of cochlear implant systems. The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought by a whistleblower, Brenda March, in 2004.

St. Jude Medical Inc. (a heart device manufacturer), Parma Community General Hospital, and Norton Healthcare have paid the federal government $3,898,300 to resolve false claim allegations that St. Jude paid illegal kickbacks to two hospitals to secure heart device business. The federal government alleges that the kickbacks caused false claims to be submitted to federal health care programs in violation of the False Claims Act.

Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. has agreed to pay the United States an additional $3,718,770, bringing the total paid to resolve civil claims arising from the company’s cost charging practices on some of its contracts with the government to $16,570,018, according to the Justice Department. 

The False Claims Act encourages individuals to blow the whistle on fraud and corruption. Indeed, those who do so are entitled to receive up to 30 percent of the amount recovered – plus attorney’s fees. In some ways, therefore, it’s a bit of a surprise that most whistleblowers only turn up in one case and then, win or lose, move on. Well, say hello to Dr. Joseph Piacentile.

EMC Corporation has agreed to pay the federal government $87.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that the information technology company violated the False Claims Act and the federal Anti-Kickback Act. The government alleged that,

It must be “False Claims Act Thursday.” We just learned that Ciena Capital LLC, a private, non-depository lender located in New York City, has reached an agreement with the federal government to settle fraud claims related to its small business lending for $26.3 million. Ciena and a subsidiary, Business Loan Center (“BLC”), a small business lending company licensed to originate and service loans under Section 7(a) of the Small Business