Phillips & Cohen LLP

Thanks to our brave whistleblower clients, Lincare, the largest distributor of home oxygen equipment, paid $29 million for overcharging the Medicare Advantage program for its services. Read more from Peter Elkind of ProPublica.?? https://lnkd.in/e5vUAwFH

Paragon Systems to pay $53.68 million to settle False Claims Act lawsuit brought by Phillips & Cohen. Thank you to our brave whistleblower client, Todd Pattison.??The settlement resolves allegations that Paragon engaged in an unlawful scheme to obtain security officer service contracts set aside by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be awarded to small businesses. https://lnkd.in/enwwG83j

Last month, the DOJ and the SEC announced that defense contractor, Raytheon Company, a subsidiary of Virginia-based defense contractor RTX will pay over $950 million to settle investigations into fraud related to pricing on government contracts and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Arms Export Control Act, including paying $428M to settle False Claims Act charges. Read more in our latest blog.?https://lnkd.in/exxU78Fq

With the recent announcement of a coordinated action against CQC Impact Investors and its former senior executives, the?Department of Justice,?Securities and Exchange Commission, and?Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed that the federal government is serious about fighting fraud in the voluntary carbon market. Whistleblowers can be instrumental in reporting fraud in the carbon market too. Read more from P&C's latest blog post. https://lnkd.in/eu7VEkMu

Cryptocurrency is a fast growing market that is particularly susceptible to fraud, due to the complex and largely anonymous nature of cryptocurrency. This month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Massachusetts?announced?charges against 18 entities and related individuals for wash trading and other market manipulation actions in the cryptocurrency industry. These criminal charges are the first-of-their-kind to be filed against financial services firms. Read more in P&C's latest blog post. https://lnkd.in/g6H5gQ8S

Congratulations to Claire Sylvia on being named a Benchmark "Litigation Star" for 2025 for her work representing whistleblowers.

Whistleblowers play an important role in exposing healthcare kickbacks. Oak Street Health agreed to pay $60 million to settle allegations they paid kickbacks to insurance agents in a complex Medicare Advantage patient recruitment scheme. Learn more in P&C's latest blog post. https://lnkd.in/eWw97tpq

Phillips & Cohen partner Steve Hasegawa spoke to Law 360 about the Zafirov decision, saying, "Getting rid of the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act would be akin to making it open season on the federal government — all kinds of fraud that we have been fighting against for decades would flourish." Read more: ?https://lnkd.in/eEwz7S_D

Three whistleblowers have been awarded $79 million for their help uncovering an offshore tax scheme that recovered $263.7 million for the government. The $79 million award is 30% of the recovery, the maximum allowed by the IRS, and is one of the largest awards in the history of the IRS whistleblower program. Read more from P&C's latest blog. https://lnkd.in/eaGY9vMw

Existing whistleblower programs have helped the government recover over $69 billion since 1986. P&C partner Emily Stabile writes about how DOJ's new whistleblower pilot program is designed to fill gaps that existing whistleblower programs do not cover,?including money laundering, foreign corruption and bribery by companies, kickbacks made to public officials, and healthcare-related violations not covered under the False Claims Act. Read more. https://lnkd.in/e75Nsw9w