Case Info
Seeger Weiss LLP represented two former drug sales representatives who 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.
On October 29, 2015, Warner Chilcott agreed to plead guilty to a felony healthcare fraud scheme and to pay $125 million to resolve kickback allegations.
“Our clients were heroic in coming forward with these allegations and assisting the Department of Justice with its investigation,” said Seeger Weiss cofounding partner Stephen A. Weiss. “It’s deeply gratifying that their perseverance and dedication has resulted in these criminal indictments and the end of Warner Chilcott’s corrupt practices. They each actively cooperated with the government’s criminal investigation for many months, helping to confirm just how important and valuable the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act are in rooting out and bringing an end to corporate fraud.”
The civil settlement was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sonya Rao and Susan Poswistilo of Ortiz’s Civil Division and Trial Counsel Colin Huntley of the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.