We previously reported that the Fourth Circuit, via a 2-1 decision in United States ex rel. Sheldon v. Allergan Sales, LLC, 24 F.4th 340 (4th Cir. 2022), affirmed the dismissal of a False Claims Act (“FCA”) qui tam lawsuit against Forest Laboratories, LLC (“Forest”). The plaintiff alleged that Forest had underpaid states by over $680 million under the Medicaid Rebate Statute by failing to aggregate all the discounts it offered in a distribution channel for its drugs. Instead, Forest had indicated that the best price it offered was the largest discount provided among the entities in that same distribution channel. How a manufacturer calculates its best price is critical in determining what Medicaid rebates it sends to states, affecting how much the federal government sends in Medicaid payments to states. For a full breakdown of the calculation under the Statute, please see our prior post.
Notably, the question before the 3-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit was what standard to apply in assessing a party’s knowledge under the FCA: is it an objective or subjective standard? Siding with several courts, the panel majority—over a vigorous dissent from Judge Wynn—agreed that the FCA requires an objective standard of knowledge. And under that standard, the requisite analysis is whether there is an objectively reasonable interpretation of the statute at issue and whether there are any authoritative guides that provide insight. In applying that standard, the panel majority held that...
Vadodara/Surat. A special CBI court has convicted four individuals in a 23-year-old fire insurance fraud case in Gujarat and sentenced each of them to three years of rigorous imprisonment. The cou...