Justice Department Recovers Over $2.2 Billion from False Claims Act Cases in Fiscal Year 2020

DOJ

The Department of Justice obtained more than $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2020, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division announced today.  Recoveries since 1986, when Congress substantially strengthened the civil False Claims Act, now total more than $64 billion.

In 1986, Congress strengthened the act by increasing incentives for whistleblowers to file lawsuits alleging false claims on behalf of the government.  These whistleblower, or qui tam, actions comprise a significant percentage of the False Claims Act cases that are filed.  If the government prevails in a qui tam action, the whistleblower, also known as the relator, typically receives a portion of the recovery ranging between 15 and 30 percent.  Whistleblowers filed 672 qui tam suits in fiscal year 2020, and this past year the department recovered over $1.6 billion in these and earlier-filed suits. read more »

Amazon faces class-action lawsuit over eBook pricing

REUTERS

Amazon.com Inc was slapped with a class-action lawsuit on Thursday accusing the e-commerce giant of inflating the prices of ebooks in collusion with some publishers.

The lawsuit alleges that Amazon and the five largest U.S. publishers, collectively called the 'Big Five', agreed to price restraints that cause consumers to overpay for eBooks purchased from them through a retail platform other than Amazon.com.

Amazon.com Inc was slapped with a class-action lawsuit on Thursday accusing the e-commerce giant of inflating the prices of ebooks in collusion with some publishers.

Law firm Hagens Berman, bringing the case, in 2011 filed a similar lawsuit against Apple Inc and the ‘Big Five’ over ebook prices. read more »

SEC launches probe of Exxon on Permian Basin asset valuation

REUTERS

The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation of Exxon Mobil Corp , following a whistleblower complaint that the oil major over-valued a key asset in the top U.S. shale field.

Several people involved in valuing the Exxon Permian asset during an internal assessment in 2019 said employees were being forced to use unrealistic assumptions about how quickly the company could drill wells there to arrive at a higher value, the report said. read more »