Major qui tam (whistleblower) cases brought under the False Claims Act and state false claims laws by Phillips & Cohen attorneys

More than $5.3 billion in civil recoveries and criminal penalties has been returned to the U.S. Treasury resulting from qui tam lawsuits brought on behalf of whistleblowers by Phillips & Cohen attorneys. Here are the outcomes of some of our whistleblower cases:

• Pfizer Inc. paid $1.8 billion to settle a qui tam lawsuit brought by Phillips & Cohen and a related criminal charge involving off-label marketing of Bextra. Pfizer paid an additional $500 million to settle five other qui tam lawsuits, bringing the total settlement to $2.3 billion -- the largest combined federal and state healthcare fraud settlement ever paid.  

• TAP Pharmaceuticals paid $875 million to settle criminal charges and two qui tam lawsuits, including one brought by Dr. Joseph Gerstein and Tufts Associated Health Maintenance Organization. They were represented by Phillips & Cohen. At the time, it was the largest health care fraud settlement ever paid to the U.S. Treasury. The government and whistleblowers alleged that the company had paid illegal kickbacks to doctors to prescribe one of its drugs.

•  HCA Inc., the nation's largest for-profit healthcare provider, paid $631 million to settle three qui tam lawsuits, including two brought by whistleblowers represented by Phillips & Cohen. Two years earlier, HCA had paid $840 million to settle criminal charges and other qui tam lawsuits. That agreement included $92 million to settle another whistleblower lawsuit brought by Phillips & Cohen clients.

•  Cephalon Inc., a pharmaceutical company, paid $425 million to the federal government and states to settle criminal charges and qui tam lawsuits filed by three whistleblowers, including one whistleblower represented by Phillips & Cohen. The whistleblowers and government alleged the pharmaceutical company engaged in off-label marketing that endangered patients' lives.

•  Northrop Grumman paid $325 million to settle a qui tam lawsuit that alleged that TRW, a company Northrop had acquired, sold the govenrment electronic components that the company knew would fail. It was the largest settlement ever paid by a defense contractor in a qui tam case and the second largest settlement ever paid involving defense contractor fraud.

•  Quest Diagnostics paid $302 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that charged a subsidiary manufactured and sold for years medical lab tests that gave faulty results. It was one of the largest recoveries ever in a case involving a medical device.

•  Wall Street investment banking firms paid more than $200 million to settle allegations that they defrauded the federal government by overpricing securities sold in connection with certain municipal bond transactions, a practice known as "yield burning".

•  An electric utility in Los Angeles paid $160 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged it had overcharged schools and certain governmental agencies for electricity. It was the largest recovery ever made against a utility for overcharging customers.

•  Mario Gabelli, a Wall Street investment superstar, and his affiliates paid $130 million to settle a qui tam lawsuit that alleged they had set up sham small businesses to buy telecom licenses at a discount reserved for small businesses.

•  Teledyne Inc. paid more than $115 million to settle two whistleblower lawsuits involving false certification of test results and padding estimates on sole source contracts.

•  Northrop Grumman paid $111.2 million to the federal government to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that TRW Inc., which it had recently acquired, padded bills submitted to the government under space and technology contracts.

•  National Health Laboratories Inc. paid $110 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit for billing Medicare for unnecessary blood tests and related criminal charges.

•  Quorum Health Group Inc., at the time the largest hospital management company, paid $85.7 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged it had systematically defrauded Medicare for years by filing fraudulent Medicare cost reports. 

•  A major defense contractor paid $82 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that charged the contractor was falsely allocating commercial costs to government contracts.

•  A unit of Medtronic Inc. paid $75 million to settle a qui tam lawsuit that alleged the company had engaged in a Medicare fraud scheme involving its spinal medical device.

•  General Electric paid $59.5 million to settle a qui tam case alleging that company executives and an Israeli general conspired to divert foreign military aid money.

•  Seven hospitals in Texas, California, Florida and Nevada paid the federal government a total of $55 million to settle a qui tam case that charged they had defrauded the Medicare program by making false claims for reimbursement in cost reports and cost-report reopenings.

•  The Singer Co. paid $50 million to settle a qui tam that charged it submitted false cost and pricing data to the Defense Department.

•  MetPath Inc. and MetWest Inc. paid a total of $39.8 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit for billing Medicare for unnecessary blood tests.

•  Three physician practice groups affiliated with the University of Washington paid $35 million to the federal government and the state of Washington to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the physician groups routinely overbilled Medicare and Medicaid for years.

•  The owner and operator of the largest home health agencies in California paid $33.8 million to settle a qui tam lawsuit that exposed a massive Medicare fraud scheme.

•  Inter-Tel Technologies and other vendors paid $33 million to settle a qui tam case brought by the city of San Francisco alleging the companies engaged in bid-rigging and fraud in the government funded "E-rate" program for schools.

•  James Jones Co., Watts Industries Inc., Tyco International (US) Inc. and the Mueller Co. paid a total of $20.8 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that claimed James Jones sold shut-off valves and fittings for water supply systems made from substandard metal to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and three other water supply districts.

•  A unit of Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc. paid a total of $20 million to settle criminal charges and a qui tam lawsuit that alleged that it had engaged in Medicare fraud through off-label marketing of Xyrem.

•  Harris County Hospital District, a Houston, Texas, hospital, paid the federal government $15 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the hospital billed Medicare and Medicaid for patients whose treatment wasn't covered by the federal health programs.

•  Allegheny Teledyne Inc. paid $13.95 million to settle a case involving whether Teledyne Systems Inc., a corporate predecessor, was properly allocating between the government and commercial customers indirect costs relating to calibration services.

•  FMC Corp. paid $13 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged the company had overbilled the government by inflating its research costs.

•  SmithKline Beecham Clinical Laboratories Inc. paid $13 million to settle whistleblower charges that it had billed the government for blood tests that doctors hadn't ordered and weren't medically necessary.

•  Corning Clinical Laboratories Inc. and Unilab Corp. paid a total of $11 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit charging that MetPath, which Corning had acquired, and Unilab billed Medicare and other government health-insurance programs for blood tests that doctors hadn't ordered and weren't medically necessary.

•  Damon Clinical Laboratories Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Corning Inc., paid $9.8 million to settle a qui tam case that said it had billed Medicare and other government health insurance programs for blood tests that hadn't been ordered and were medically unnecessary.

•  Tenet Healthcare Corp. paid $9.75 million to the federal government to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that charged Brotman Medical Center, which Tenet owns and operates, filed fraudulent Medicare cost reports.

•  KPMG paid $9 million to settle a qui tam lawsuit that alleged the firm helped hospital chain HCA prepare and later conceal fraudulent claims in Medicare cost reports that cost the program millions of dollars.

•  A Florida radiologist paid $7 million to settle Medicare fraud charges involving medical scan businesses.

•  Hewlett Packard Co. and Agilent Technologies Inc. paid a total of $7 million to the federal government to settle a qui tam case that said the companies had knowingly sold defective medical monitoring devices to federal government agencies and failed to investigate or correct the problems.

•  Sharp Memorial Hospital, a San Diego hospital, paid $6.2 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged it defrauded Medicare by filing fraudulent claims for reimbursement for costs associated with its heart and kidney transplant centers.

•  Credit card giants Providian Financial Corp. and Total System Services Inc. paid the federal government $6 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the companies defrauded the U.S. Postal Service.

•  CSX Transportation paid nearly $6 million to settle claims that it had overcharged the U.S. for railroad crossing maintenance.

•  Omnicare Inc. paid $5.3 million to settle a qui tam case and civil charges alleging that a subsidiary had engaged in Medicaid fraud by taking the unused medicine of dead nursing home patients and selling it back to Medicaid for other patients.