medpundit |
||
|
Friday, July 15, 2005Right off the top comes the reward money for the 'relators,' the whistleblowers who initiated the legal action. These rewards are hefty: in the TAP [Pharmaceuticals] case, a former salesman took home $77 million, and a doctor and his clinic split another $17 million; in the Warner-Lambert case, the whistleblower, an employee of only four months, won $26.6 million for his trouble; the family of the deceased whistleblower involved in the Bayer case got $34 million. In all, more than one fourth of the $1.03 billion collected by the DOJ nationwide on health care fraud in FY 2003 went to the relators. Where does rest of the money go? Thanks to provisions of the FCA added in 1986, whistleblower's attorneys are guaranteed standard hourly fees and expenses, plus a shot at a multi-million dollar contingency fee. In December 2003, a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly article noted that the Boston law firm representing the Warner-Lambert whistleblower had already racked up 6,000 billable hours for three attorneys and a paralegal. The case ended up settling for $430 million. Needless to say, the law firms specializing in FCA cases are cleaning up financially. posted by Sydney on 7/15/2005 06:09:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
|