Qui Tam
Straight Talk on Whistle-Blower Claims
Defending qui tam actions requires a specific combination of trial skills, experience with government authorities and a strategic knowledge of clients’ industries.
Andrews Kurth’s Qui Tam Litigation practice group offers all these strategic resources. Our experience includes winning numerous dismissals and defense verdicts for oil and gas, health care and aviation clients faced with whistle-blower allegations and claims seeking damages and steep civil penalties.
Sophisticated and inherently complex, qui tam litigation commonly involves technical issues in science and medicine and an ever-developing body of Federal whistle-blower laws. In these high-stakes and often high-visibility cases under the civil False Claims Act (FCA), Andrews Kurth’s highly experienced trial lawyers defend clients with straight talk assertiveness.
Qui Tam Practice Approach
Our experience working with the U.S. Department of Justice can assist us in protecting our clients interests and their reputations.
We believe that the best way to win or favorably settle a qui tam case is to prepare to try it. That means more than just motion practice. We deploy firm-wide resources including the insight from our Corporate Compliance, Investigations and Defense, Corporate Governance, and Labor and Employment practice groups.
From pretrial through trial and appeal, our litigation services span the entire life of a case, including counseling on government intervention and associated publicity issues.
Qui Tam Litigation Experience
Over the past two decades, we have counseled clients in the health care and energy industries on challenges under the False Claims Act. Our energy clients include oil and natural gas producers, marketers and transporters. For health care clients, we have defended claims such as false billing involving a range of Medicare issues, including heart transplant patients.
Our representative matters and cases include:
- Oil and Gas/Illegal Dumping—Achieved dismissal of a qui tam action brought by an offshore drilling rig worker, on behalf of the government under the FCA, claiming that our client, an energy services company, ordered the worker to illegally dump hazardous substances into the Gulf of Mexico. The dismissal was upheld by United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Oil and Gas/Royalties Underpayment—Our lawyers have defended oil and gas producers and marketers in numerous qui tam cases relating to the alleged underpayment of royalties from government-regulated leases.
- Oil and Gas/Undermeasurement—Andrews Kurth lawyers have defended oil and gas transporters in qui tam cases relating to the alleged undermeasurement of the volume and heating content of natural gas produced from government-regulated leases.
- Airport/Defense Verdict—Obtained a defense jury verdict in a trial involving claims made by a former employee of a major international airport that the airport falsely certified compliance with environmental laws. This was in connection with $200 million of grants from the Federal Aviation Administration for airport improvements. Verdict was affirmed by the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Medicare Reimbursement and Coding—Managed an action brought by a hospital, on behalf of the government, against our client, a medical coder, involving false allegations of improper practices on insurance and Medicare reimbursements.
- Fraudulent Medicare/Medicaid Filings—Defended the top executives of two cardiac-care services and medical corporations in claims, made on behalf of the government, to recover damages and civil penalties related to allegations of fraudulent coding and billing. After we obtained two successful motions to dismiss, the Relators subsequently dismissed their remaining claims.
