ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Important False Claims Act Case for Sales of Defective Drugs
Senator Grassley Questions Why Government Moved to Dismiss
Evans Law Firm, Inc. represents the Whistleblowers/Relators in U.S. ex rel. Campie and Campie v. Gilead Sciences, Inc., No. C-11-0941 EMC (N. D. Cal. Mar. 28, 2019), a False Claims Act (FCA) whistleblower case alleging government reimbursements for defective medications manufactured by defendant. Back in March, the government moved to dismiss the case. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R. Iowa), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, wants to know why. In a letter last week to Attorney General William P. Barr, Senator Grassley asked for an explanation of the government’s decision.
The government’s motion to dismiss in Campie is part of what Senator Grassley refers to in the letter to as the Justice Department’s “efforts to dismiss greater numbers of qui tam cases for reasons that appear primarily unrelated to the merits of the individual cases.” Those efforts grew out of the Department’s so-called “Granston Memorandum” of January 2018 which suggested use of statutory provision rarely invoked in the past to get rid of numerous whistleblower cases even where the government has not intervened in the case. The government has moved to dismiss dozens of such cases since the memo came out. Senator Grassley, whose legislation strengthened the False Claims Act over thirty years ago, is concerned. He rejects the suggestion that cases where the government declines to intervene lack merit or have little chance of success. He points out that in fact the opposite is true. Since 1986, whistleblowers have recovered over $2.4 billion for the federal government in cases where the government itself declined to intervene.
The government’s motion to dismiss Campie is now before the Court and it remains to be seen what will happen. Regardless, our litigators are encouraged by Senator Grassley’s close look at the DOJ’s policy on False Claims cases. Private individuals recover enormous amounts of money for the government (and us taxpayers) every year by going after fraud. The federal government should be encouraging the help of private citizens ferreting out fraud not discouraging it in favor of big corporations.
Contact Us
If you or a loved one has information regarding a whistleblower or qui tam case in San Francisco or elsewhere California county brought under the False Claims Act, for securities fraud before the Securities and Exchange Commission or under the Internal Revenue Code for prosecution of tax avoidance schemes including offshore schemes, contact Ingrid M. Evans and the other Evans Law Firm whistleblower and qui tam attorneys at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. Our attorneys have experience with complex financial contracts and large insurance companies. We can help guide your case through a jury trial or toward an equitable settlement. We handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistleblower law, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
