Stone & Magnanini LLP - Morgan Settlement

SHORT HILLS, N.J., April 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Stone & Magnanini LLP, in conjunction with the U.S. Government, today announced a $190 million federal-portion only settlement of a False Claims Act whistleblower case against McKesson Corporation ("McKesson"). 

The whistleblower and the Government had accused McKesson of committing fraud against federal and state healthcare programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, by reporting inflated pricing information for all brand-name, self-administered drugs, causing the Government to overpay for those drugs between 2001 and 2009 by millions of dollars.  

Stone & Magnanini LLP represented David Morgan, a pharmacist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and Pharma industry computer forensics expert, who originally uncovered the fraud through a detailed and determined investigation using proprietary information.  Mr. Morgan and his company at the time, Morgan Healthcare Audits, were expert auditors of Pharmacy Benefit Managers.

For this case, the Stone & Magnanini team was led by Managing Partners David Stone and Robert Magnanini, and partners Eric Jaso and Jason Spiro. The team was intimately involved in helping the Government to bring the case to a successful resolution. 

Stone & Magnanini specializes in False Claims Act qui tam actions, especially in the pharmaceutical fraud area.  Stone, who previously served as the head of the False Claims Act department at Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, has over 15 years of experience in prosecuting false claims cases, and has assisted the federal and state governments in recovering over a billion dollars from healthcare companies, including Forrest Laboratories, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cephalon, and Medco. 

"When federal and state governments pay for prescription drugs, the payment for those drugs must be in accordance with the law," said Stone. "The Complaint alleges that McKesson misled the Government and the American public about the costs of the drugs and thereby fraudulently inflated the price that the federal and state governments paid for thousands of name brand, self-administered drugs.  This fraud has increased the cost for all Americans by forcing numerous government agencies throughout the country to pay more than they should have.  Especially in such hard economic times as we find ourselves, this behavior cannot be tolerated.

"The fraudulent reporting of drug prices, including the use of average wholesale prices, has consistently been identified causing excessive Medicare and Medicaid payments and make up a significant portion of the hundred billion dollars of fraud suffered by Medicaid and Medicare each year," Stone continued.  "We're glad we were able to assist Mr. Morgan in notifying and supporting the Government, and working with him and the Government, throughout this case to bring it to a successful conclusion.  We hope that this will serve as a deterrent and prevent other companies from proceeding down the same path."

Stone & Magnanini LLP is a boutique litigation firm founded by David Stone and Robert Magnanini, former partners of Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP.  Their practice focuses on representing whistleblowers in False Claims Act cases, and on other types of complex litigation.

SOURCE Stone & Magnanini LLP