A court on Friday ruled in favor of whistleblowers who contend UScellular improperly obtained bidding credits for spectrum licenses acquired in 2015.
Earlier, a federal district court determined that the whistleblowers, Sara Leibman and Mark O’Connor, didn’t satisfy requirements of the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar. Generally speaking, the bar prevents whistleblowers from pursuing fraud claims based on the same allegations as ones that have already been publicly disclosed.
The Circuit disagreed and reversed the district court’s decision, saying the whistleblowers adequately established that they qualify as original sources, paving the way for the case to proceed.
“We are very pleased the Court of Appeals has recognized the merit of our case against U.S. Cellular and will allow our fraud allegations against the company to proceed in the lower court,” Leibman and O’Connor said in a joint statement provided to Fierce.
Fierce reached out to UScellular’s parent company, TDS Telecom, as well as T-Mobile, which acquired UScellular licenses earlier this year, for comment and will update this article if we hear back.
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