In late April, the United States Department of Justice and the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation settled a case out of court where the Justice Department claimed that the Foundation was misusing funds in violation of the federal False Claims Act. Without admitting liability, the Foundation and its principal, Dr. Alan Curtis, agreed to settle for…
Volkswagen is on the verge of pleading guilty to criminal charges and paying $4.3 billion in fines, in a deal that would resolve a federal criminal investigation into its cheating on vehicle emissions tests, the automaker said on Tuesday. Read the article One notable aspect of the proposed deal to settle the Volkswagen diesel emissions…
Was he distracted? It’s possible that he was texting or eating on his way to school. Then again, he could have been the victim of his own inexperience as a driver. It was a clear day, just routine traffic on Memorial Parkway. He’d probably been driving all of 6 months. He said he didn’t mean it…
Top 100 things to do if you are in a car wreck that’s not your fault: 1. Call Mastando & Artrip and we’ll take care of the other 99.
Police departments nationwide are warning about the dangers of playing “Pokémon Go.” From New York, where the first confirmed game-related serious car crash occurred http://www.businessinsider.com/first-car-crash-caused-by-pokemon-go-2016-7, to ambushes in Philly https://twitter.com/PPD35Dist/status/752302490666827776, law enforcement officials are reminding people who gotta catch ‘em all to use common sense. Their advice: Do not use the application when you are…
Story By Challen Stephens | cstephens@al.com Email the author | Follow on Twitter The lawsuit filed on behalf of affected Volkswagen owners in Alabama now adds Bosch to the list of defendants, claiming the software supplier knew what Volkswagen was doing to cheat emissions standards and assisted in duping the American public for eight years. “Instead…
Less than four days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) had designed some of its diesel models to cheat emissions tests, lawyers have brought at least 25 class actions on behalf of scores of car owners in all 50 U.S. states. Tony Mastando of Alabama’s Mastando & Artrip sued on behalf…
A whistleblower is someone who exposes wrongdoing. When that wrongdoing involves fraud on the government, Congress wants whistleblowers to step forward. In fact, Congress created special laws to encourage people with inside knowledge of fraud to come forward and then protects them when they do. Whistleblowers can use these federal and state laws to expose…
Yes, when an applicant uses a “virtual office” as a principle place of business, a HUBZone certification can be grounds for a false claims act case. On April 8th, for example, the Department of Justice announced that a company agreed to pay $250,000 to resolve allegations that it made false statements to the Small Business…
The U.S. Department of Justice announced a record $5.69 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud and false claims against the government in fiscal year 2014. Of this total, the government paid out $435 million to the whistle blowers who exposed fraud and false claims by filing a qui tam complaint —…