Tag: Whistleblower

Whistleblower Law Firm Files Amici Curiae Brief in DC Whistleblower Protection Act Case

An amici curiae brief  was filed recently in Tucker v. DC on behalf of the Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association and the Government Accountability Project. The brief urges the DC Court of Appeals to apply the correct burden-shifting framework in DC Whistleblower Protection Act cases.  In Tucker, the trial court gave pretext and business judgment instructions, both of which are contrary to the plain meaning and intent of the DC WPA.

The amici curiae brief argues that the DC Court of Appeals should correct the following three errors in the jury instructions:

  • First, the trial court erred when it instructed the jury to resolve the employee’s claim by performing a McDonnell-Douglas burden-shifting analysis.  Applying the McDonnell-Douglas analysis alongside the DC WPA’s standards creates a confusing and contradictory task for the jury. In the second phase of the McDonnell-Douglasanalysis the employer need only argue a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its action. In contrast, the DC WPA’s statutory text explicitly mandates that the employer must prove its explanation by clear and convincing evidence, a much higher standard than the preponderance of the evidence. DC Code § 1-615.54(b). Because of this difference, the standards are fundamentally incompatible.

  • Second, the trial court erred by requiring the jury to reach a decision on the plaintiff’s showing that the employer’s alleged business reasons were pretext, when the DC WPA does not require such a showing.

  • Third, the trial court erred by instructing the jury to weigh the employer’s evidence of its “business judgment” against the employee’s showing by preponderance of the evidence standard rather than applying the higher, clear and convincing evidence standard to the employer’s evidence. The DC WPA applies different burdens of persuasion to the employee’s and employer’s showings. See DC Code § 1-615.54(b). A whistleblower’s initial showing is weighed under the “preponderance of the evidence.”  This means necessarily that the employer’s evidence of a legitimate non-retaliatory reason for the employer’s action – which must be proven by the far more burdensome “clear and convincing” standard – should not be weighed against a whistleblower’s initial showing.

The brief also argues that the standard for causation should track the statutory language – an employee must show that her protected disclosure was a “contributing factor” in a personnel decision, and then DC can prevail if it establishes by “clear and convincing” evidence that it would have made the same decision for independent, legitimate reasons absent the protected disclosure.

ARTICLE BY Jason Zuckerman of Zuckerman Law
© 2014 Zuckerman Law

The Supreme Court Closes the Books on Civil False Claims Act Cases and Takes Issue with the First to File Rule

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court in Kellogg Brown & Root v. United States ex rel. Carter reversed the Fourth Circuit in part and affirmed in part, holding that the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (WSLA) only applies to criminal offenses, and that the popular colloquialism known as the “first to file rule” only prohibits qui tam actions when a similar suit is currently pending. Based on the text of the legislation alone, these holdings are glaringly obvious, but somehow both of these decisions manage to upset generally accepted Government contracts assumptions.

In 2005, a whistleblower filed a qui tam action against Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc. (KBR) and Halliburton Co. (subsidiaries and the relator’s former employers) alleging that they had submitted a false claim to the Government. The relator alleged that KBR billed the Department of Defense under a water purification services contract for services that were either not performed or not properly performed. Water purification service contracts in Iraq have been a popular area for litigation with the U.S. Army, partly because of the enormity of the operation and expense required to supply deployed soldiers with a steady supply of clean water in an arid environment.  Unique to this case, the allegation of fraud was brought as a qui tam action that allows the relator to recover up to 30% of the Government’s total recovery.

The statute of limitations for qui tam actions is within six years of a violation or within three years of the date by which the United States should have known about a violation, but under no circumstances can it be brought more than 10 years after the date of the violation. The Solicitor General argued that the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (WSLA) indefinitely suspends any statute of limitations for “any offense” involving fraud against the Government during “hostilities” and therefore also suspended the statute of limitations for qui tam actions. On its face, the WSLA appears broad enough to encompass both civil and criminal accusations of fraud, especially if the reader has an expansive view of the word “offense.” From a practical perspective, this has been very difficult for defense contractors to stomach. As a nation that has been in uninterrupted war for 14 years, Government contractors could be called to disprove an allegation in a qui tam suit stemming from events that transpired more than a decade ago. These liabilities remain on their books and can factor into insurance coverage for dealing with these types of claims. These risks and liabilities inherent in doing business with the Government are often passed on to the Government in the form of less competitive bid proposals and higher costs. Many Government contracts attorneys understood that the Government’s use of WSLA in civil cases was questionable as the WSLA statute is codified in Title 18 “Crimes and Criminal Procedure.” The Supreme Court focused on this location of the WSLA text and the definition in place at that time defining “offenses” as crimes. In the end, the Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit on this point and held that the WSLA does not apply to civil actions involving fraud. While this would seem to be a straightforward result, as noted in the Solicitor General’s brief, “every court of appeals to consider the questions has held that the WSLA applies in civil fraud cases.” The list includes cases in the Ninth and Sixth Circuits as well as the former Court of Claims, so this decision while reasonably anticipated still constitutes considerable reversal.

The Supreme Court’s second holding in this case was similarly obvious from a textualist perspective, but it manages to awaken long dormant liabilities for those contractors that applauded the first part of the Supreme Court’s opinion. This case took an unusual route to get to the Supreme Court. It was filed four separate times after the each of the previous filings was dismissed because similar qui tam cases were pending in other jurisdictions. The False Claims Act, which provides the rules for filing a qui tam states that “no person other than the Government may intervene or bring a related action based on the facts underlying the pending action.” This is popularly referred to as the “first to file rule.” Unfortunately, that shorthand is so prevalent within the industry that the term “first to file,” which does not appear in the text, took on a meaning of its own when combined with decisions on notice and original source requirements. It was generally accepted that Congress’s intent was to prohibit copycat filings where a business would have to deal with the same qui tam allegations of fraud over and over from different relators. It was thought that the public disclosure required in unsealing a qui tam action should prohibit a future relator from using some of that same information in his own qui tam suit filed immediately upon the dismissal of the first suit. The National Whistleblower Center argued in its brief that if the “first to file rule” precluded future filings on the same issue a “wholly uninformed whistleblower could file a vexatious, frivolous, overbroad, and all-encompassing lawsuit. The Government would be left uninformed of the fraud as it was prior to the filing of the suit, and other well-informed whistleblowers would have no incentive or ability to come forward.” The Supreme Court agreed that there was no support in the text of the statute to interpret “pending” as anything more than “not yet decided” and affirmed this portion of the Fourth Circuit’s judgment. This means that qui tam filers must merely wait until similar cases are dismissed before filing their claims.

This doesn’t mean that qui tam filers will simply be able to adopt the accusations and evidence from the previous case, but it remains to be seen what advantages this approach might have for secondary filers who have had the benefit of observing the first qui tam. There is another pending petition at the Supreme Court, Purdue Pharma v. United States ex rel. May, that provide additional clarity on “whether the False Claims Act’s pre-2010 ‘public-disclosure bar,’ 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4) (2009), prohibits claims that are ‘substantially similar’ to prior public disclosures, or instead bars a claim only if the plaintiff’s knowledge ‘actually derives’ from prior disclosures.”

For now, Government contractors need to be aware that qui tam filings are not necessarily prohibited just because someone previously filed a qui tam on the same issue. Defense contractors who supported military efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan can rely on the normal statute of limitations for civil claims involving fraud, but need to be aware that criminal acts of fraud are still prosecutable years after the cessation of hostilities.

ARTICLE BY Dana M. Collins of Odin, Feldman & Pittleman, P.C.
© 2015 Odin, Feldman & Pittleman, P.C.

DaVita Agree to $495 Million Settlement in Alleged Medicare Fraud Lawsuit Filed by Qui Tam Whistleblowers

On Monday, May 4, 2015, DaVita Kidney Care, a division of DaVita Healthcare Partners, Inc. (DaVita), and one of the leading dialysis services providers in the United States, agreed to pay the U.S. Government $450 million for allegedly violating the False Claims Act (FCA) when it continuously discarded good medicine and then billed Medicare and Medicaid for it. DaVita also agreed to pay $45 million for legal fees.

According to the lawsuit filed in 2011 by two former employees of DaVita, between 2003 and 2010, when DaVita administered iron and vitamin supplements such as Zemplar, Vitamin D, and Venofer, vials containing more than what the patients needed were used and the rest was thrown away. For example, if a patient only needed 25 milligrams of medicine, DaVita allegedly used a 100 milligram vial, administered only 25 mg, and tossed the rest in the trash. Although before 2001, this practice was condoned by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in order to prevent infectious outbreaks caused by the re-entry of the same vial of medicine, the CDC subsequently changed it policies to outlaw this practice.

This FCA lawsuit alleging that DaVita misused and mishandled of medicine, and overbilled Medicare and Medicaid is not the first such allegation against DaVita, which is not a stranger to FCA lawsuits. In fact, DaVita previously settled two other lawsuits in which it allegedly violated the FCA. In October 2014, DaVita agreed to pay the U.S. Government $350 million for allegedly persuading physicians or physician groups to refer their dialysis patients to DaVita by offering kickbacks for each patient referred. And in 2012, DaVita agreed to pay $55 million to the federal government for overbilling the government for Epogen, an anemia drug. These lawsuits were filed by former employees who decided to come forward as whistleblowers and to help to uncover what they considered to be illegal practices by DaVita. Under the FCA, such whistleblowers can bring what is known as a “qui tam” lawsuit, which is brought by a private citizen to recover money obtained by fraud on the government. As an incentive to bring qui tam lawsuits, the FCA provides that qui whistleblowers receive between 15 and 30 percent of the amount of funds recovered for the government.

Provisions of the FCA make it unlawful for a person or company to defraud governmental programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Posted by the Whistleblower Practice Group at Tycko & Zavareei LLP

© 2015 by Tycko & Zavareei LLP

Self-Reporting: A Wise Strategy or Chasing Unicorns?

As we noted in an earlier post, Department of Justice (DOJ) representatives have been emphasizing this spring the financial benefits of cooperation. They did so again last week at the Practicing Law Institute’s Enforcement 2015: Perspectives from Government Agencies, during which enforcement officials from the DOJ, SEC, CFTC, FINRA and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) all pushed back last week against complaints that the benefits of self-reporting are illusory and the costs far too high.

Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement Andrew Ceresney claimed that significant benefits of self-reporting are evidenced by three FCPA settlements earlier this year: a disgorgement-only settlement with Goodyear, a deferred prosecution agreement with PBSJ Corporation and a settlement with FLIR Systems, Inc. which entailed only a “minimal penalty” of $1 million. William Stellmach, Principal Deputy Chief of the Fraud Section at the U.S. Department of Justice, noted that the Alstom S.A. settlement in which Alstom paid a $772,290,000 criminal penalty to settle an FCPA prosecution “gives you 772 million reasons to self-disclose.” Among the factors cited for such a high fine was the company’s failure to self-report.

Stellmach claimed that – despite the perception of many practitioners that regulators almost always require some form of “public shaming” for even those companies that self-report – decisions not to prosecute are “not unicorns.” The difficulty, he explained, is that such decisions not to prosecute cannot be publicized without risking the adverse publicity companies want to avoid. As a result, he noted, there has been some discussion internally at DOJ about how it might anonymize such resolutions so that they could be publicized in order to provide the defense bar and their clients with evidence as to the benefits of self-reporting. The CFPB did exactly that, according to Deputy Enforcement Director Jeffrey Ehrlich, in a recent action filed against two financial institutions for alleged RESPA violations. A third institution (referred to in the complaint only as “Unnamed Financial Institution”) that engaged in the same conduct escaped being either named or fined by discovering the violation, reporting it and terminating the individual at issue.

The calculus regarding whether to self-report is also changing, according to the SEC’s Ceresney, as a result of the increase in whistleblowers. If a company’s management decides not to reach out to regulators, someone else may very well do it for them in today’s environment of substantial whistleblower awards.

For companies which have made the decision to self-report, the next decision is to which regulator should they report. The Director of the CFTC’s Division of Enforcement Aitan Goelman suggested that, if the company and/or the conduct is within the jurisdiction of multiple regulators, the company should advise all the relevant regulators, as opposed to relying on one regulator to pass the information along to the others.

The regulators also made clear that self-reporting is not, by itself, enough to get significant credit; sincere efforts and cooperation in uncovering the full scope of the problem is required. Ceresney and Stellmach, however, rejected criticism that regulator demands as to the scope of such investigations result in undue costs, sometimes in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Rather than micromanaging the companies’ investigation, the SEC and DOJ only expect a risk based investigation. For example, if an employee was paying bribes in one country, the investigation might cover only the countries in which the employee worked. Absent evidence of a more widespread problem, there would be no need to “boil the ocean” with an investigation that covered all operations around the globe.

Stellmach and others cautioned, however, that in order to receive the most significant credit for cooperation, a company must be willing to identify culpable employees and assist in the gathering of evidence in order to prosecute those individuals. As FINRA’s Executive Vice President of Enforcement J. Bradley Bennett noted, this is the area in which it is most difficult for FINRA to get cooperation. Too often, he indicated, the individuals identified by the company are dead, retired, now employed by a competitor or outside FINRA’s jurisdiction.

© 2015 BARNES & THORNBURG LLP  Authored by:  Anne N. DePrez

Whistleblower Award Update 2015

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There was not much activity from the SEC Office of the Whistleblower (OWB) in the months since it announced the highest whistleblower award to date in September 2014, but that changed in February when it issued a number of denials.

Awards:

In the Matter of the Claim for Award, Exchange Act Rel. No. 72947. On August 29, 2014, the SEC issued its first award under the Dodd-Frank Act to an employee who performed audit and compliance functions. The employee, who had compliance responsibilities, received an award of $300,000. Generally, information provided to an individual with compliance responsibilities is not considered “original.” Such an employee is entitled to an award, however, if they first report the misconduct to the company and it subsequently fails to take action within 120 days. See 17 C.F.R. §§ 240.21F-4(b)(4)(iii)(B),v(v). This exception applied to the claimant because he reported the conduct to his supervisor 120 days prior to submitting it to the Commission.

In the Matter of the Claim for Award, Exchange Act Rel. No. 73174. In September 2014, the SEC announced a record-breaking whistleblower award of $30 million. The significance of this award was discussed in a previous blog post.

In the Matter of the Claim for Award, Exchange Act Rel. No. 74404. The SEC did not announce its next whistleblower award until March 2015. This award was the first ever to a former corporate officer who learned of a violation as a result of another employee reporting misconduct through corporate and compliance channels. Typically, officers who learn about fraud through another employee or through a compliance process are not eligible for an award under the whistleblower program. See 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-4(b)(4)(iii)(A). However, the SEC’s bounty rules provide an exception that makes an officer eligible for an award if he or she provides the information to the SEC more than 120 days after other responsible personnel possessed the information and failed to adequately act on it. See 17 C.F.R. § 240.21F-4(b)(4)(v)(C). The former corporate officer fell within that exception and the SEC awarded the officer between $475,000 and $575,000 for reporting original, high-quality information regarding misconduct under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Denials:

In the Matter of Pipeline Trading Systems LLC, Notice of Covered Action 2011-194. Pipeline Trading Systems LLC (“Pipeline”) and two of its top executives agreed to pay $1 million for the company’s failure to disclose to customers that a majority of orders placed on its “dark pool” trading platform were filled by a trading operation affiliated with Pipeline. The SEC denied the claimant an award because he did not meet the definition of a “whistleblower” under the Exchange Act. (Denial Order Aug. 15, 2014).

In the Matter of the Claim for Award, Exchange Act Rel. No. 72947. On August 29, 2014, the SEC denied an award to a second claimant because the information provided did not lead to the successful enforcement of the covered action and did not contribute to the ongoing investigation.

SEC v. James Roland Dial, Case No. 4.12-CV-01654 (S.D. Tex. 2012), Notice of Covered Action 2012-66. The defendants caused Grifco International Inc. to issue more than 13 million unrestricted securities to themselves and then sold the securities shortly after into a rising artificial market (caused by their dissemination of false and misleading information). The defendants were ordered to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest. The SEC denied the claimant an award because (1) claimant did not provide “original information” within the meaning of Section 21F(a)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rule 21F-4(b)(1)(iv), (2) the information provided by claimant did not lead to successful enforcement of a covered judicial or administrative action within the meaning of Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rules 21F-3(a) and 21F-4(c), and (3) claimant was not a “whistleblower” within the meaning of Section 21F(a)(6) of the Exchange Act and Rule 21F-2 because he did not provide information relating to a possible violation of the federal securities laws in accordance with the procedures set forth in Rule 21F-9(a) under the Exchange Act. (Denial Order Feb. 13, 2015).

SEC v. Harbert Management Corporation, HMC-New York, Inc. and HMC Investors, LLC, 12-cv-5029 (S.D.N.Y. 2012), Notice of Covered Action 2012-89. Here, the SEC denied the claimant an award because (1) he did not provide information that led to the successful enforcement within the meaning of Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rules 21F-3(a)(3) and 21F-4(c), and (2) he failed to submit information in the form and manner that is required under Rules 21F-2(a)(2), 21F-8(a) and 21F-9(a) & (b) of the Exchange Act. (Denial Order Feb. 13, 2015).

SEC v. Kenneth Ira Starr, 10 civ 4270 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), Notice of Covered Action 2012-129. On March 3, 2011, Starr was sentenced to 90 months in prison, ordered to pay more than $30 million in restitution, and ordered to forfeit more than $29 million in connection with his misappropriation of investor funds in connection to a series of cases filed against him by the government, which included charges of money laundering, wire fraud, fraud by an investment advisor, and misappropriation of client funds. This specific action arose from Starr’s misappropriation of at least $8.7 million of his clients’ money. The SEC denied the claimant an award because he or she did not provide information that led to the successful enforcement within the meaning of Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rules 21F-3(a)(3) and 21F-4(c). (Denial Order Feb. 13, 2015).

SEC v. George Wesley Harris, No. 3:09-cv-01809-M (N.D. Tex. 2009), Notice of Covered Action 2011-206. The Northern District of Texas entered a $4.8 million judgment against Harris and his co-defendants for operating a fraud scheme that promised returns for investing in oil drilling projects in Texas and New Mexico. The SEC denied the award because (1) claimant did not provide information that led to the successful enforcement within the meaning of Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rules 21F-3(a) and 21F-4(c), and (2) claimant also did not provide the Commission with original information within the meaning for Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act because Claimant’s submission was not derived from claimant’s independent knowledge or independent analysis. The SEC further noted that the claimant made a false statement on the Form WB-APP, which was signed under penalty of perjury, by stating he or she was “the 44th President of the United States.” (Denial Order Feb. 13, 2015).

The OWB denied two other claims, one on February 13, 2015, and one on February 16, 2015, in orders that make it impossible to tell the name or nature of the underlying action. Both claims were denied, however, because the information provided by the whistleblowers did not provide information that led to the successful enforcement of an action within the meaning of Section 21F(b)(1) of the Exchange Act and Rules 21F-3(a)(3) and 21F-4(c). Specifically, the information did not (1) cause the Commission to (i) commence an examination, (ii) open or reopen an investigation, or (iii) inquire into different conduct as part of a current Commission examination or investigation under Rule 21F-4(c)(1) of the Exchange Act; or (2) significantly contribute to the success of a Commission judicial or administrative enforcement action under Rule 21F-4(c)(2) of the Exchange Act.

Finally, the Second Circuit upheld the SEC’s denial of an award to a whistleblower who provided information to the SEC before the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act in July 2010. Styker v. S.E.C., No. 13-4404-ag, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 3765 (2d Cir. Mar. 11, 2015). The whistleblower submitted information from 2004-2009 to the SEC, which eventually led to a $24 million settlement with Advanced Technologies Group. The Second Circuit rejected the whistleblower’s argument that the SEC went beyond its congressionally mandated authority, and it deferred to the SEC’s interpretation of the law that information submitted prior to July 2010 does not qualify for an award. Id. at *8-9.

ARTICLE BY

William L. Carr
Daniel E. Brewer
Lucas B. Michelen

Federal Government to Receive a $75 Million Settlement from CHSPSC in Alleged Medicaid Fraud Scheme: Community Health Systems Professional Services Corp.

Tycko & Zavareei LLP

On February 2, 2015, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Community Health Systems Professional Services Corporation (CHSPSC) and three of its CHS affiliated hospitals in New Mexico, agreed to pay the government $75 million to settle allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) when it manipulated the Medicaid funding program by making illegal donations to New Mexico county governments in order to receive higher federally funded Medicaid payments.  The alleged improper donations from CHS were made to Chaves, Luna and San Miguel counties in the state of New Mexico.

The Sole Community Provider Program (SCP) is a federal and state funded program that is specifically designed to reimburse SCP hospitals for medical expenses incurred by uninsured and indigent patients.  Payments received by SCP hospitals are processed under New Mexico’s federal and state Medicaid Plan.  Under the SCP, the federal government will share 75 percent of patient claims incurred by SCP hospitals contingent on New Mexico’s state and local government’s ability to pay the remaining 25 percent under the matching share of the SCP.  One of the stipulations for receiving the funds is that the state and county government’s 25 percent share has to consist of state or county funds, and not impermissible “donations” from private hospitals.

According to the qui tam lawsuit filed by Robert Baker, a former CHSPSC revenue manager, on behalf of the government, between 2001 and 2010, CHS hospitals in the state of New Mexico filed claims to recover uninsured or indigent medical expenses under the SCP program.  However, the funds used to pay the state and local counties 25 percent share were donated by CHS.  This ongoing alleged illegal practice by CHS violated the FCA, and caused the state of New Mexico to present false claims to the United States for payments made to CHS under the SCP program.  In addition, the government also alleged that CHS concealed the true nature of these donations to avoid detection by federal and state authorities, and as a result of its scheme, received SCP payments which were funded by the United States in the amount of three times CHS’ “donations.”  The whistleblower, Mr. Baker, will receive approximately $18.6 million as his reward for having disclosed the fraud to the government under the False Claims Act.

ARTICLE BY

Whistleblower Practice Group
OF
Tycko & Zavareei LLP

New Jersey Pharmaceutical Company Agrees to Pay $39 Million to Settle Alleged Anti-Kickback Violations

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On January 9, 2015, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo, headquartered in New Jersey, agreed to pay the Government $39 million to settle claims that it violated the Anti-Kickback Statue and the False Claims Act (FCA) by allegedly incentivizing physicians to prescribe Daiichi drugs by providing kickbacks to those doctors.  The drugs prescribed as a result of those alleged kickbacks were billed under the Medicare or Medicaid Program, and thus paid for, at least in part, by the government.  This lawsuit was filed by former Daiichi sales representative Kathy Fragoules under the qui tam whistleblower provision of the FCA.  Fragoules will receive an award of $6.1 million, which represents approximately 15 percent of the settlement amount, for exposing Daiicho Sankyo’s alleged illegal practices.

The qui tam lawsuit, originally filed on behalf of the government by Fragoules, claims that for a period of six years, from January 1, 2005 to March 31, 2011, Daiichi Sankyo allegedly devised a scheme to promote several of its drug products by offering monetary kickbacks to physicians that prescribed Daiichi drugs to their patients.  The Physician Self-Referral Statue and the Anti-Kickback Statue prohibit anyone from knowingly and willfully offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving remuneration in order to induce business reimbursed under the Medicare or Medicaid programs.  However, according to the government, Daiichi allegedly orchestrated kickback compensation to physicians in the form of speaker fees by allegedly funneling payment to health care providers through the Daiichi’s Physician Organization and Discussion programs known as PODs.  In doing so, the government claims that Daiichi knowingly and willfully violated the FCA.

Physician drug ordering and prescribing decisions continue to be influenced by the drug industry.  Last year, the DOJ reported billions in settlements in connection with the pharmaceutical industry arising out of violations of the Physician Self-Referral Statue and the Anti-Kickback Statue.  The government also paid out millions in awards to individuals and whistleblowers that exposed these alleged illegal practices through the filing of qui tam lawsuits under the FCA.  A whistleblower who files a case against a company that has committed fraud against the government, may receive compensation of up to 30 percent of the amount ultimately recovered by the government.

ARTICLE BY

Jonathan Tycko
OF
Tycko & Zavareei LLP

Former JPMorgan Chase Insider Blows the Whistle

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Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone recently profiled the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking in his article, The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare. Alayne Fleischmann, a former Chase manager, revealed the true reason why JPMorganChase settled the claims brought by the DOJ for such a seemingly staggering amount — cash in exchange for secrecy.

Magnifying Glass Investigation

On the eve of a civil complaint being filed against Chase, Jamie Dimon called federal prosecutors and negotiated a quiet resolution, keeping many details regarding Chase’s misconduct hidden from the public. Expecting to be called as a key witness in a criminal prosecution against Chase executive officers, Fleischmann says that she was stood up by the government, despite her ability to present ample evidence with time remaining before the statute of limitations expired on a claim for wire fraud. By coming forward now, Fleischman seeks to prevent the “biggest financial cover-up in history.”

No longer muzzled by the fear of retribution, Fleischman tells the story of what she calls a “massive criminal securities fraud” that Chase’s stipulated Statement of Facts (part of its public settlement with the DOJ) only hints at. As a transaction manager, Fleischmann functioned as a quality-control officer ensuring that lower quality “scratch and dent” loan products were not cleared to be re-sold and securitized into mortgage pools marketed as being above subprime. However, Fleischman contends that is exactly what occurred despite her numerous attempts to alert and dissuade her supervisors. Fleishmann was then laid off in February 2008.

Fleischmann states that despite initial reports by her colleagues advising superiors that the loans being re-sold contained a high incidence of “material misrepresentations” due to overstated income, diligence managers pressured the team until loans began to clear. Perhaps most indicative of the fact that Chase knew what it was doing and intended on keeping its misdeeds secret was what Fleischmann referred to as a “no e-mail” policy. After speaking with the DOJ, Fleishmann realized that the government intended on using the new evidence that she could provide as leverage in negotiations to extract a larger settlement from Chase in order to keep her testimony concealed.

Significance of Chase’s Misconduct for Correspondent Lenders

Despite its lack of specifics in some respects, Chase’s 10-and-a-half-page Statement of Facts to its settlement with the DOJ can be cited by correspondent lenders in defending mortgage put-back cases brought by Chase. Contrary to the position it takes in many ongoing buyback cases, Chase acknowledged its widespread practice of conducting pre-purchase quality control reviews prior to acquiring loans from originators and re-selling or securitizing its loan products. Moreover, Chase often deliberately purchased loans it knew or suspected were non-compliant with its own guidelines without regard for the ability of correspondent lenders to bear the burden of repurchasing defaulted loans, and without regard for its obligation to timely notify correspondent lenders of defects.  These facts have numerous potentially favorable implications for parties fighting repurchase and make-whole claims made by Chase.

U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division Implements Procedure to Immediately Review Civil Division Qui Tam Cases

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Recently, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) said that the Criminal Division implemented a new procedure related to qui tam cases. Under the new procedure, the Criminal Division will immediately review qui tam cases it receives from the DOJ’s Civil Division to determine whether to open a criminal investigation into the case. If the Criminal Division opens an investigation, it will work with the Civil Division and U.S. Attorney’s Offices to coordinate parallel investigations.

The announcement can be found here.

ARTICLE BY

William O. Jackson
OF
von Briesen & Roper, S.C.

Department of Defense Contractors Agree to Pay the U.S. Government $5.5 Million for Allegedly Supplying the Military with Low-Grade Batteries for Humvee Gun Turrets Used in Iraq; Minnesota Whistleblower to Receive $990,000

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On September 16, 2014, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Department of Defense (DOD) contractors, M.K. Battery, Inc. (M.K. Battery), East Penn Manufacturing Company (East Penn), NPC Robotics, Inc. (NPC), BAE Systems, Inc. (BAE) and BAE Systems Tactical Vehicle Systems LP (BAE) had agreed to a settlement of $5.5 million for allegedly violating the False Claims Act (FCA) by selling the U.S. Military substandard batteries for Humvee gun turrets used on military combat vehicles in Iraq. Minnesota whistleblower, David McIntosh, former employee of M.K. Battery, will receive $990,000 which represents his share of the settlement for reporting fraud against the government – in this case misrepresentation of a vital product supplied to the DOD.

A gun turret is a weapon mount that protects the crew or mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon and at the same time lets the weapon be aimed and fired in many directions. Sealed acid batteries are used as a backup to turn the turrets on the Humvees in the event that the engine gives out.  According to Mr. McIntosh, and unbeknownst to the Army, the manufacturing process of the batteries was allegedly changed from the original design presented to the DOD, consequently cutting the battery’s life span by as much as 50 percent and potentially putting U.S. Troops in harm’s way.  Mr. McIntosh, from Stacy, Minnesota, who at the time was employed by M.K. Battery as a regional sales representative, brought his concerns to top company officials at M.K. Battery.  However, in 2007 after numerous unsuccessful attempts to convince M.K. Battery that its decision to cut costs on these batteries could be hazardous to U.S. Troops, especially during combat, Mr. McIntosh alerted the DOD to this matter.  Three month later, M.K. Battery fired Mr. McIntosh.

Shortly thereafter, Mr. McIntosh and his attorneys filed the lawsuit under the whistleblowersprovisions of the False Claims Act, which is one of the most effective methods that the government has implemented for combating fraud. Under the FCA, any person, who knows of an individual or company that has defrauded the federal government, can file a “qui tam” lawsuit to recover damages on the government’s behalf.  Mr. McIntosh filed this particular lawsuit on behalf of himself and the Department of Defense. Additionally, a whistleblower who files a case against a company that has committed fraud against the government, may receive an award of up to 30 percent of the settlement. In this case, Mr. McIntosh’s share of $5.5 million is approximately 18 percent of the settlement.

ARTICLE BY

Whistleblower Practice Group
OF
Tycko & Zavareei LLP
© 2014 by Tycko & Zavareei LLP