Whistleblower News From The Inside -- August 7, 2017

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Wells Fargo Settles with U.S. Government Over Loans to Veterans – Wells Fargo & Co. settled an 11-year-old lawsuit with the U.S. government that claimed the lender overcharged veterans under a federal mortgage-refinancing program. The bank will pay $108 million to the government to resolve allegations that some loans it made under a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program shouldn’t have been eligible for guarantees by the agency, the San Francisco-based firm said Friday in a statement. Wells Fargo said it denies the allegations in the lawsuit, which was originally filed in 2006 by two mortgage brokers. Wells Fargo and other banks were accused of defrauding veterans and the U.S. out of millions of dollars under a Veterans Administration loan refinancing program. The lenders allegedly overcharged veterans and concealed their conduct from the government to obtain guarantees for the loans, according to filings. Most of the banks have settled the lawsuits. Bloomberg

German Regulator Probes VW, Daimler for Disclosure Violations – German markets regulator BaFin said it was probing whether Volkswagen and Daimler had violated disclosure rules, following media reports that both carmakers made use of whistleblower provisions to regulators. Media reports have said that both Daimler and Volkswagen made use of whistleblower provisions as a way to limit the potential fines from authorities examining possible cartel violations. German magazine Der Spiegel reported last month that BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Audi, and Volkswagen may have used industry committee meetings to fix the size of tanks for AdBlue, a liquid used to treat nitrogen oxide in diesel emissions. Reuters

Kansas Hospital Sued of Misdiagnosis Leads to Organ Removals – A Kansas woman alleges in a lawsuit that a misdiagnosis led doctors to unnecessarily remove parts of her organs and then cover up the incorrect diagnosis, which she didn’t learn about until a doctor at the hospital filed a whistleblower lawsuit over her case. The lawsuit filed this week by Wendy Ann Noon Berner, 46, of Shawnee, accuses the University of Kansas Hospital and the now-former chairwoman of the pathology department, of fraud, negligence and civil conspiracy, KCUR reported. Berner was misdiagnosed as having a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, which is fatal within five years in most cases. In September 2015, she underwent a surgery to remove part of the pancreas and multiple other body parts. She alleges in her lawsuit that she learned of the problem only after Dr. Lowell Tilzer, a pathologist and one-time chairman of the pathology department, filed a lawsuit more than a year ago claiming the hospital retaliated against him when he discussed the case with the Joint Commission, which accredits and certifies hospitals. Tilzer later dropped his lawsuit and is now semi-retired. The Charlotte Observer