Whistleblower News From The Inside — April 27, 2016

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Congress to hold hearing tomorrow on False Claims Act – The hearing  on proposals to amend the False Claims Act – such as requiring whistleblowers to report internally before disclosing fraud to the government – will be held at 4 pm eastern tomorrow; live streaming will be available at the following website: House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee

Pfizer and Wyeth to pay $784 million in Medicaid False Claims Act case – The settlement resolves whistleblower allegations that Wyeth failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates to Medicaid for sales of its proton pump inhibitor drugs Protonix Oral and Protonix IV.  DOJ

False Claims Act lawsuit against children’s vitamin manufacturer settles – Endo Health Solutions and its subsidiary Qualitest agreed to pay $39 million to resolve charges that they defrauded Medicaid by selling a child fluoride supplement that contained less than half the amount of fluoride it purported to have.  NBC (regional news affiliate)

Supreme Court hears arguments in former Virginia governor’s corruption case – Robert McDonnell’s lawyers are expected to argue that his conviction should be overturned because there was nothing illegal about the gifts he received from a wealthy donor.  Washington Post

Estonian cybercriminal hit with 7 years in prison for widespread malware fraud conspiracy – Vladimir Tsastsin was charged with infecting over 4 million computers in more than 100 countries with malware to redirect users’ internet searches to certain websites and advertisements, receiving millions of dollars from advertisers.  USAO-SDNY

Judge green lights False Claims Act case despite pending bankruptcy – A Florida judge rejected a request from Dr. Asad Qamar to stay a whistleblower lawsuit alleging he billed Medicare for upwards of thousands of unnecessary medical procedures and paid kickbacks to patients.  Ocala StarBanner