Another recovery for the Commonwealth of Virginia under VFATA
What was that I was recently saying about recoveries under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act?
Oh yes, that actually prevailing in a VFATA lawsuit is very different from doing a press release and announcing a big new case. Heretofore, Attorney General Mark Herring has done some of the later, but not much of the former. Until now, that is.
I am very happy to pass along news that broke last week about Virginia’s participation in the Stericycle false claims act case. Stericycle, for those who don’t know, offers medical waste disposal services to a variety of customers, including school districts, health departments, colleges, police departments, nursing homes and municipalities, including more than 200 local and state government entities in Virginia.
The Complaint — filed in the Southern District of New York by qui tam relator Jennifer D. Perez — alleged that Stericycle charged its government entity clients automatic and unwarranted automatic price increases. The first settlement in the case was obtained by the feds back in 2013 — you can read the Complaint in Intervention here. From there it took the various states more than two years to work out their parts of the settlement.
Hopefully we will see, in the near future, some larger settlements out General Herring’s office — stay tuned readers.
