ATLANTA,GA
DULUTH, GA
For many years, Michael Sullivan of our firm and his colleague Jim Breen have organized the “Whistleblower Law Symposium.” It has consistently received high marks from participants.
This year’s Symposium will be available either in-person or online on Wednesday, March 13, starting at 815 am EDT. It offers 7.5 CLE hours, including 1 Ethics hour and 4 Trial Practice hours. Cost is $279.
You can register (and see the full Agenda) here: atlantabar.org/…. Topics include:
(more…)COVID-19 has required unprecedented government spending through the CARES Act and other measures. That spending creates countless opportunities for theft of funds desperately needed to fight the coronavirus.
The virus has made the nation’s major “whistleblower” law–the federal False Claims Act (“FCA”) and similar state False Claims Acts –even more essential. Both the federal and state FCA laws are civil statutes designed to combat fraud directed at taxpayer dollars.
(more…)Through a $465 million settlement, Finch McCranie’s Michael A. Sullivan and James J. Breen of the Breen Law Firm successfully represented a whistleblower whose qui tam case under the False Claims Act helped return hundreds of millions to the United States and various states for Medicaid rebates underpaid on new EpiPen products introduced in 2009.
The Department of Justice announced the settlement on August 17, 2017, of two qui tam cases pending in the District of Massachusetts, United States, et al. ex rel. sanofi-aventis US LLC v. Mylan Inc., et al., and our case, United States, et al. ex rel. Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys, Inc. Mylan Inc., et al..
(more…)Today the Department of Justice announced the largest settlement in its history with a skilled nursing facility chain–a qui tam whistleblower case under the False Claims Act that our firm and our co-counsel Mark Simpson worked side-by-side with DOJ to prepare for trial.
We applaud the exceptional work of DOJ’s attorneys, as well the outstanding attorneys of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Below is our press release on today’s settlement:
(more…)This past week our firm’s Larry D. Thompson, the former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, joined me for a panel discussion that I moderated on “The False Claims Act at 30,” at the annual Taxpayers Against Fraud Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
Joining us on the panel were the Department of Justice’s Renee Brooker, an Assistant Director in the Civil Division with 25 years of DOJ experience; James J. (Jim) Breen, an accomplished qui tam lawyer whose cases have recovered almost $4 billion for federal and state taxpayers; and Neil Getnick, Chairman of TAF and an accomplished FCA lawyer in his own right.
(more…)We are proud to announce that Finch McCranie partner and head of its Whistleblower practice Michael A. Sullivan has been named to the “SuperLawyers” list for the eleventh consecutive year.
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Yesterday the Justice Department apparently responded to the frequent lament, “Why has almost no one gone to prison for the financial crisis?” DOJ signaled that it will now look to hold responsible both culpable individuals and their companies for corporate misdeeds–both criminally and civilly.
If DOJ means what it says, this policy change is profound. It should hit corporate officers whose business models are based on fraud and false claims. It should also snare high level executives who turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, and who typically get away with it.
(more…)Since 2007, top officials from federal and state agencies and many of the country’s experts in whistleblower cases have gathered in Atlanta to discuss and debate anti-fraud efforts at the Whistleblower Law Symposium.
Today I was excited to chair our Whistleblower Law Symposium once again, as these experts explored the latest developments in qui tam cases under the False Claims Act, and SEC whistleblower, CFTC whistleblower and IRS whistleblower claims. The breadth of expertise of today’s speakers was unusual.
First, top enforcement officials from California, Georgia and Texas shared their approaches and priorities under their state False Claims Acts. We were honored to hear from Britt Grant, Solicitor General of Georgia, about Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens’ impressive new efforts to stop the theft of taxpayer funds.
(more…)After I helped draft Georgia’s new False Claims Act enacted last year, the “Taxpayer Protection False Claims Act,” I have been asked many questions about this new whistleblower law. Like the federal False Claims Act, its “qui tam” provisions allow private citizens to report fraud against public funds and receive a share of the recovery.
What many people may not know is that Georgia’s two False Claims Acts now apply to all spending by the state, and all spending by local governments.
The 2012 Act can be used by a wide array of “local government” bodies, and by citizens who know about fraud against those entities. The Act defines “local government” broadly to include “any Georgia county, municipal corporation, consolidated government, authority, board of education or other local public board, body, or commission, town, school district, board of cooperative educational services, local public benefit corporation, hospital authority, taxing authority, or other political subdivision of the state or of such local government, including MARTA.”
(more…)This week in a rare occurrence, the heads of the IRS and SEC Whistleblower programs and federal and state False Clams Act officials participated in one conference to discuss prosecuting and defending whistleblower cases.
Our firm has organized this “Whistleblower Law Symposium” since 2007 to explore developments in the growing number of federal and state whistleblower laws that seek to stop fraud against taxpayer funds.
“Sequestration” threatened to keep some major speakers from participating because of travel restrictions. The solution was “beaming in” Sean McKessey, Director of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower, and Steve Whitlock, Director of the IRS Whistleblower Office, to join our panelists by videoconference.
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