Phillips & Cohen associate John Tremblay represents whistleblowers in both “qui tam” (False Claims Act) cases and claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s whistleblower reward program.
He has worked on Medicare and Medicaid fraud whistleblower cases involving kickbacks, fraudulent billing and mischaracterization of laboratory services, and the falsification of pharmacy claims for costly prescription drugs. Many of the SEC cases he works on allege bribery of foreign officials in violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Mr. Tremblay represented two international whistleblower clients who filed a joint submission to the SEC and received a $37 million award and a whistleblower who received a $20 million award from the SEC.
He also represented a whistleblower in a qui tam case alleging a laboratory delayed diagnostic testing in order to seek additional Medicare reimbursement to which it was not entitled. The laboratory paid $2.8 million to settle the case. Most recently, Mr. Tremblay helped clients file a False Claims Act case, which settled for over $600,000, against a pharmacy for long-term care facilities that allegedly dispensed controlled substances without valid prescriptions.
Mr. Tremblay received his law degree from Berkeley Law at the University of California, where he was senior articles editor for the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law.
He worked as a law clerk for an Oakland, California, law firm while in law school, assisting with employment and civil rights cases. He also served as a counselor and co-director of the East Bay Workers’ Rights Clinic in Berkeley.
Prior to starting law school, Mr. Tremblay was a program officer at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, a Georgetown University-based labor research center, and a legal assistant at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
He is admitted to the bar in Washington, DC, and California.
- “Who Is a Whistleblower Under Dodd-Frank’s Anti-Retaliation Provisions?” – NYU Compliance & Enforcement
Mr. Tremblay volunteers on a pro bono basis for a variety of non-profit organizations. He works with a Whitman-Walker Health clinic that helps transgender clients change their names and gender markers on their government identification documents. He also recently represented the widow of a military veteran in a bono case that convinced the Veterans Administration (VA) it had erred in its reasoning denying disability benefits to the veteran for mental and physical health issues he experienced as a result of his service. The VA agreed to vacate its decision and re-adjudicate the veteran’s claims.