Qui Tam

Defending qui tam actions requires a specific combination of trial skills, experience with government authorities and a strategic knowledge of clients’ industries. 

The Qui Tam litigation practice group at Hunton Andrews Kurth offers all these strategic resources. Our experience includes winning numerous dismissals and defense verdicts for oil and gas, health care and aviation clients faced with whistle-blower allegations and claims seeking damages and steep civil penalties. 

Sophisticated and inherently complex, qui tam litigation commonly involves technical issues in technology, science and/or medicine and an ever-developing body of Federal whistle-blower laws. In these high-stakes and often high-visibility cases under the civil False Claims Act (FCA), our highly experienced trial lawyers defend clients with straight talk assertiveness.

Qui Tam Practice Approach

Our experience working with the US Department of Justice can also assist us in protecting our clients' interests and their reputations. 

We believe that the best way to win or favorably settle a qui tam case is to prepare to try it. That means more than just motion practice. We draw insight not only from our litigators, but also deploy firm-wide resources from our White Collar and Regulatory Enforcement, Corporate Governance and Labor and Employment practice groups. 

From pretrial through trial and appeal, our litigation services span the entire life of a case, including counseling on government intervention and associated publicity issues. 

Qui Tam Litigation Experience

Over the past two decades, Hunton Andrews Kurth has counseled clients in both the energy and health care industries on challenges under the FCA. Our energy clients include oil and natural gas producers, marketers and transporters. For our health care clients, we have defended such claims as alleged false billing involving a range of Medicare issues, including heart transplant patients.

Some of our representative qui tam matters include:

• Oil and Gas/Illegal Dumping—Our lawyers achieved dismissal of a qui tam action brought by an offshore drilling rig worker, on behalf of the government under the FCA, claiming that our client, an energy services company, ordered the worker to illegally dump hazardous substances into the Gulf of Mexico. The dismissal was upheld by United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Oil and Gas/Royalties Underpayment—Our lawyers successfully defended several oil and gas producers and marketers in multi-district qui tam cases relating to the alleged underpayment of royalties from government-regulated leases.
• Oil and Gas/Undermeasurement—Our lawyers have won dismissal of several qui tam cases relating to the alleged undermeasurement of the volume and heating content of natural gas produced from government-regulated leases.
• Medicare Reimbursement and Coding—Our lawyers successfully defended an action brought by a hospital, on behalf of the government, against our client, a medical coder, involving false allegations of improper practices on insurance and Medicare reimbursements.
• Fraudulent Medicare/Medicaid Filings—Our lawyers defended the top executives of two cardiac-care services and medical corporations in claims, made on behalf of the government, to recover damages and civil penalties related to allegations of fraudulent coding and billing. After we obtained two successful motions to dismiss, the Relators subsequently dismissed their remaining claims.