Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act Case Settles for $63 million
What is true in sports is also true in other contexts — records, dear readers, were made to be broken.
For a number of years now I have had the distinction of having the record for the largest non-healthcare settlement under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act…that case, Commonwealth of Virginia ex rel. Nisar Siddiqui v. Navy Federal Credit Union, et al., resulted in a recovery of more than $47 million to the Commonwealth.
The record from that cast stood for more than eight years, until General Herring announced this week’s settlement with eleven banks for a total of $63 million for violations of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. Without question, General Herring has taken a greater interest in VFATA enforcement than any of his predecessors, as discussed previously in this blog.
And dear readers it is time for me to give Attorney General Mark Herring his due…it would, indeed, be churlish of me not to give credit where credit is due.
As regular readers know, it usually annoys me when lawyers hold a press conference to announce a new case they have filed. I can forgive State Attorney Generals — almost all of whom are elected — a bit for using this tactic, given that they almost always want to get re-elected. Still, it can be annoying when State AGs hold press conferences and announce big new cases when they have never delivered a big result.
I previously wrote in this blog that actually prevailing in a VFATA lawsuit is very different from doing a press release and announcing a new case with a demand for umpteen million dollars.
Until this week, Attorney General Mark Herring has done some of the later, and some of the former, but he had no truly huge recoveries….In fact I wrote those very words when General Herring announced this lawsuit, in which he sought something like $1.15 billion.
But now he has delivered the goods. And, as we all know, he is seeking re-election later this year, instead of resigning to run for Governor as almost everyone else has. With one announced Republican running against him, this is sure to shape up into an interesting election later this year….
In the meantime, I will be editing my marketing materials about my VFATA practice…I may no longer have the record for the largest non-healthcare VFATA recovery, but I still have the largest non-intervened, non-healthcare, VFATA recovery…
Stay tuned for more ….
