When businesses, agencies, or organizations that are defrauding government entities, courageous whistleblowers seeking justice are often permitted to bring qui tam whistleblower claims on behalf of the government.
Seeger Weiss’ whistleblower attorneys offer consultation and representation to whistleblowers who valiantly seek to report fraud through lawsuits under the False Claims Act and similar state whistleblower laws, as well as under whistleblower reward programs under the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) whistleblower program.
We’ve worked on a variety of federal and state matters, including – some of the largest and most groundbreaking cases. Our team which includes former federal and state prosecutors has the knowledge and experience to guide potential whistleblowers through every step of the process.
Whistleblower clients believe in justice and in taking a stand against bad actors defrauding the government. Through the False Claims Act and other federal and state laws, our team at Seeger Weiss has fought for justice alongside our whistleblower clients, helped return millions of ill-gotten dollars to the United States and various individual states, and obtained millions of dollars in awards for our whistleblower clients.
Results
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Our Involvement
Seeger Weiss LLP represented two former drug sales representatives who heroically blew the whistle on pharmaceutical manufacturer Warner Chilcott. They exposed the company’s practice of paying kickbacks to health care professionals to prescribe its drugs as well as filling out and submitting fraudulent prior authorization requests to evade Medicare and Medicaid formulary restrictions—also a violation of patients’ privacy protections under HIPAA.
What Happened?
The Department of Justice found that the company had a marketing scheme that involved paying kickbacks to health care professionals to prescribe its drugs, as well as filling out and submitting fraudulent prior authorization requests to evade Medicare and Medicaid formulary restrictions. Several officers of the company were indicted based on their findings.
How Much Did the Whistleblowers Get?
Warner Chilcott eventually paid $125 million to settle the kickback allegations, of which the whistleblowers received approximately $22.9 million, or just under 20 percent of the settlement, as their award for coming forward.*
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Our Involvement
Seeger Weiss LLP represented the whistleblower in this case involving the first whistleblower settlement under the 2010 tax whistleblower amendment to New York’s False Claims Act. In this groundbreaking case, we represented a relator who blew the whistle on millions of dollars of unreported income and sales taxes by celebrity tailor Mohanbhai Ramchandani in New York.
What Happened?
Mohan, and his business, Mohan’s Custom Tailors based in New York City, was found to have committed tax fraud against New York State over a ten-year period, resulting in millions of dollars in unreported sales and income taxes.
How much did the whistleblower get?
The suit settled for $5.5 million in back taxes and penalties to the State of New York, and the whistleblower received an award of $1.1 million, or 20 percent of the government’s recovery.*
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Our Involvement
Seeger Weiss was co-counsel for the whistleblower, a licensed practical nurse, in a healthcare fraud whistleblower action against CareCore National LLC. The company, headquartered in Blufton, SC, provides pre-authorization/pre-certification services for diagnostic testing to ensure that only medically reasonable and necessary tests are performed on patients and paid for by insurers.
What Happened?
The whistleblower alleged that CareCore directed its nursing staff to “Process As Directed” or to “PAD” certain of those cases that had been sent for a doctor’s review. For these “padded” cases, nurses were instructed to issue pre-authorizations for diagnostic testing even though the set criteria had not been met and the doctors had not conducted the required review. As a result, the managed care organizations and other providers, including those with which the government contracted, paid for costly diagnostic tests, that were not properly authorized as medically reasonable or necessary.
How Much Did the Whistleblowers Get?
CareCore reached a $54 million settlement from which, pursuant to False Claims Act provisions, the relator will be awarded approximately $10.5 million plus interest—or 20%—from the government’s combined federal and state recovery.*
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Our Involvement
Seeger Weiss represented former Life Spine employees who came forward to blow the whistle on the company’s fraudulent kickback scheme recruiting doctors to use their devices on patients.
What Happened?
The government determined that Life Spine’s practices violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, which resulted in numerous false claims for payments submitted to Medicaid and Medicare programs.
How Much Did the Whistleblower get?
Life Spine Inc. and major executives paid close to $6 million dollars in a settlement with the federal government. Of that, the former-employee whistleblowers who came forward were awarded 20% of the settlement payments.
Seeger Weiss represented the whistleblower, who brought the fraud to light and revealed the intentional sale of bogus medical devices from the company Stimwave, which claimed to provide a non-opioid alternative to chronic pain management. The scheme resulted in millions of dollars of fraudulently induced Medicare payments.
What happened?
The Department of Justice announced a $10 million dollar penalty and a criminal indictment against former CEO Laura Perryman in connection with a scheme to create and sell a non-functioning dummy medical device for implantation into patients suffering from chronic pain. The company agreed to pay $8.6 to settle the whistleblower lawsuit as part of the $10 million penalty.
A founding partner of Seeger Weiss, Stephen A. Weiss is chair of the firm’s qui tam/whistleblower practice. Steve has represented whistleblowers in some of the nation’s largest and most notable recoveries under the federal False Claims Act and state law counterparts. With a concentration in health care and tax fraud, he has led actions against CareCore National, Warner Chilcott, and Life Spine, Inc. resulting in recoveries worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Steve also obtained the first settlement ever reached under the 2010 tax whistleblower amendments to New York’s False Claims Act.
For well over a decade, Seeger Weiss partner Shauna Itri has been leading litigation teams in complex fraud cases in both state and federal courts. She has extensive experience representing whistleblowers in False Claims Act lawsuits and tax and securities whistleblowers with claims under the IRS and SEC whistleblower programs. Shauna has litigated multiple whistleblower cases to government intervention and settlement.
Seeger Weiss associate Justin M. Smigelsky deals with a variety of complex issues in his well-rounded practice, including representing whistleblowers in qui tam proceedings. He is experienced in lawsuits filed and litigated pursuant to the federal False Claims Act and state law counterparts, as well as disclosures submitted pursuant to the IRS, AML, and SEC Whistleblower Programs.
Recognized for excellence
In the 2026 edition of Best Law Firms, ranked by Best Lawyers, Seeger Weiss was recognized nationally for the firm’s representation of plaintiffs in mass tort and class action litigation. Best Law Firms is issued by Best Lawyers.
Learn more about their selection methodology
For the fifth consecutive year, Chambers honored Seeger Weiss with the highest firm recognition, Band 1, in the 2025 Chambers USA Product Liability: Plaintiffs guide. Partners Chris Seeger, Dave Buchanan, Ben Barnett & Parvin Aminolroaya were also featured in the guide. These recognitions are issued by Chambers and Partners.
Learn more about their selection methodology
Seeger Weiss was recognized as Products Liability Practice Group of the Year at The National Law Journal’s 2025 Elite Trial Lawyers award ceremony. The 2025 Products Liability Practice Group of the Year award is issued by The National Law Journal.
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Law360 selected Seeger Weiss’s product liability practice as a 2023 Practice Group of the Year. The award honors “attorney teams behind litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry this past year.” This award is issued by Law360.
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Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.
Contact Seeger Weiss
If you have information regarding fraudulent activity or other wrongdoing against the government, you may be able to file a whistleblower claim on behalf of the government or disclose your information through one of many whistleblower programs. If the case is successful, you may be entitled to a portion of the money recovered by the government. To determine whether you may have a viable whistleblower claim, it’s important to contact an attorney who is familiar with the types of conduct that a whistleblower may expose, understands the applicable laws,and has the ability to navigate the whistleblower process, including the various procedural prerequisites.
Whistleblower laws are complex and nuanced. With extensive experience and proven success representing whistleblowers in qui tam actions, Seeger Weiss can help clients expose fraudulent activity and receive compensation for reporting the misconduct. Please fill out the free case evaluation form, and an experienced member of Seeger Weiss’s staff will contact you. Initial consultations are free of charge and do not create a legal relationship.
FAQ’s:
What is Qui Tam?
The term qui tam is derived from the Latin phrase “qui tam pro domino rete quam pro seipse,” which means “he who sues for the king as for himself.” Under common law a private citizen can sue on behalf of the government. If the case is successful the government will receive damages, and the person who brought the suit is entitled to some amount of compensation for their assistance, provided certain conditions are met. The purpose of qui tam actions is to encourage citizens to alert the government to wrongdoing.
Types of Illegal Conduct Whistleblowers Can Report
A whistleblower may uncover many different types of fraud committed against the government, including:
Health Care Industry Fraud – Often involves pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, physicians or other healthcare providers,or drug wholesale companies. Medicare and Medicaid fraud are common subjects of whistleblower healthcare claims, with a wide variety of common schemes including violations of anti-kickback laws, “up-coding,” liability for substandard care, Stark law violations for engaging in prohibited self-referrals, and various fraud schemes related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tax Fraud – Every year, the IRS receives thousands of reports to their whistleblower programs. In addition, certain states have statewide whistleblower laws to report tax improprieties, like the New York 2010 whistleblower amendment to their tax code. These programs may vary,so it’s important that whistleblowers work with attorneys that know how to handle their cases of fraud.
DOD Fraud – Since military/defense contracts are so large, they are ripe for fraudulent activity such as overcharging or padding contracts and invoices, failure to perform mandatory testing, or providing inferior products as a substitute for those promised under a contract.
Financial Fraud – This type of fraud often involves mortgages and pension funds where individuals or companies falsify various information.
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) — Securities fraud is also a common type of financial fraud, and there are specific whistleblower laws that you need to be aware of. The SEC has a specific program that provides awards to relators who report a wide variety of financial fraud or other violations of securities laws.
Environmental Fraud – Whistleblowers are critical to uncovering environmental misconduct and ensuring companies properly remediate environmental damage. If a whistleblower reports conduct that violates environmental regulations and results in penalties under federal laws, they may be able to recover some portion of the damages. Separately, a company overcharging or failing to meet the specifications of environmental contracts may be held accountable under the False Claims Act of 1863.
Money Laundering Violations and Sanctions Evasion – The anti-money laundering whistleblower program enables whistleblowers to come forward anonymously with information in regard to money-laundering violations and violations of U.S. economic and trade sanctions, including with respect to the Russian Federation, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Counter Narcotics Sanctions, and Venezuela-related sanctions.
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – FCPA whistleblowers can come forward with informationthey have on a company or individual bribing foreign officials in an attempt to influence a decision or action affecting that company’s business.
Legal Basis for Claims
The False Claims Act of 1863, as amended over the years, is one of the most important laws for whistleblowers, because it allows a private citizen, known as a “relator,” having information regarding a false or fraudulent claim against the governmentto sue on behalf of the government and share in any recovery.
This law prohibits individuals and entities from submitting false claims to the government for payment from or avoiding payments to the government. In general, however, a wide array of conduct falls under the federal False Claims Act, which also contains protections for whistleblowers.
The law protects whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting government fraud along with many other federal laws providing more specific protection to those who report illegal conduct regarding industries such as airlines, banking and financial institutions, and myriad other business sectors. In addition, there are several state laws ensuring that whistleblowers are not subject to adverse action for coming forward.
Some claims are excluded under this act, such as tax claims under the Internal Revenue Code, but whistleblowers can bring federal tax claims under the IRS Tax Whistleblower Program, and state tax claims under certain state whistleblower laws, such as the New York State False Claims Act. As such, it’s important to work with a law firm that understands the common fraudulent schemes and the applicable law.
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For updates on the litigation of which your case is a part, find the litigation’s individual case page for the latest. For general information about how these kinds of cases work, check out our FAQ. Still looking for answers? Get in touch using the form.
