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False Claims Act Update & Alert |
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Taxpayers
Against Fraud Education Fund | Washington, D.C. |
WWW.TAF.ORG |
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 $704
Million Serono SettlementSwiss biotech company Serono has agreed to plead guilty and pay $704 million to resolve criminal and civil charges it illegally marketed Serostim, a human growth hormone used to combat body wasting in AIDS patients. The case is the largest civil settlement against a prescription drug manufacturer to date. The Serono scam involved three key components:
"This scam was costing U.S.
taxpayers scores of millions of dollars a year," said James Moorman,
President of Taxpayers Against Fraud. "Bringing it to justice was a
public-private partnership made possible only because of the courage
of whistleblowers who were willing to stand up, speak up and risk
all." |
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 Staples to
Pay $7.4 MillionStaples Contract and Commercial, a division of office products giant Staples, Inc., will pay $7.4 million to settle charges the company submitted false claims when it sold office products to the U.S. Government that were not permitted by a General Services Administration (GSA) contract that required all covered office products to be made in countries covered by the Trade Agreements Act. Earlier this year, the Justice Department reached a $9.8 million settlement with Office Max, Inc. and a $4.75 million settlement with Office Depot, Inc. based on similar allegations by the same relators. >> To read more |
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 Massachusetts
Medicaid Fraud: Catching 1 Cent for Every $10
The
Massachusetts Medicaid program is recovering a little
more one
cent in fraud for every ten dollars spent by the
program according to state auditors which criticize
state officials for not doing more to detect and
discourage such abuses. According to the U.S.
Government Accountability Office, between 3 and 10 percent
of all Medicaid costs nationwide are lost
to fraud and abuse each year. >>
To read more
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 Boeing's Bogus PartsA False Claims Act lawsuit against Boeing accuses the company of accepting defective and uninspected parts from Ducommun, a supplier based in Carson, California. The case involves 32 jets built for the government, but 1,600 commercial planes built between 1994 and 2004 also contain major structural elements known to be defective and/or uninspected >> To read more |
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 Con, Rip Off and RepeatInvestigators for the Government Accountability Office report that medical equipment suppliers suspended for defrauding Medicare "have little trouble regaining billing privileges so they can do it all over again." CMS paid medical equipment suppliers about $8.8 billion in FY 2004, and improper payments are estimated to account for $900 million of the total. >> To read the report (PDF) |
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Top Ten False Claims Act Cases This week's Serono settlement is the third largest civil False Claims Act settlement of all time.
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