Whistleblower News From The Inside -- March 15, 2018

By the C|C Whistleblower Lawyer Team

Defense contractor settles FCA suit for over $12M — TrellisWare Technologies has settled allegations that it illegitimately obtained Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) contracts. To be eligible for an SBIR contract, a small business cannot be majority owned by another company. TrellisWare is a majority-owned subsidiary of ViaSat, a broadband services and technology company. USAO Southern District of California

Pennsylvania healthcare provider settles FCA suit for $550k — Marshfield Medical has settled allegations that it failed to provide qualified interpreting physicians to monitor certain types of surgeries via intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring (“IONM”). IONM allows a remote physician to monitor the integrity of neural structures during surgery via a live data stream. Medicare rules require that the qualified interpreting physician is licensed to practice medicine. Marshfield allegedly failed to provide a qualified interpreting physician to monitor surgeries for which it purportedly provided remote IONM services, sometimes no one monitored the surgeries, and other times a foreign medical school graduate with no license to practice medicine in the United States was the only monitor. The fraud was brought to light by a whistleblower. USAO Eastern District of Pennsylvania

US opens FCPA probe into Mexican cement company — The DOJ is exploring whether payments Cemex made related to the construction of a cement plant in Columbia violated the FCPA. Cemex is one of the world’s largest cement producers, and one of the biggest companies in Mexico. According to filings, Cemex paid $20M to a non-governmental employee of a Columbian cement company. Later audits showed irregularities with the payment, and Cemex terminated several executives over the payments. Wall Street Journal