The Whistleblower Law Collaborative is pleased to announce that the Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund named WLC founding members Suzanne E. Durrell and Robert M. Thomas, Jr. the 2017 Lawyers of the Year at the 17th Annual TAFEF Conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Ms. Durrell and Mr. Thomas were recognized as “an incomparable team” who “have had a hand in some of the largest False Claims Act cases ever settled or won in court.”
The Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund is a nonprofit public interest organization dedicated to combating fraud against the government and protecting taxpayer funds through private public partnerships. The organization recognized Mr. Thomas and Ms. Durrell with its award for “an extraordinarily successful year in careers devoted to fighting fraud.”
We are honored, grateful, and humbled to be named Lawyers of the Year by this organization, which has been at the forefront of fighting fraud against the government and protecting taxpayers’ money.
-Robert M. Thomas, Jr.
In particular, in 2017 WLC clients were instrumental in the resolution of two significant False Claims Act cases that have returned close to half a billion dollars to American taxpayers. These include: the $465 million settlement between the United States, the States and Mylan Inc. and Mylan Specialty LP resolving allegations that Mylan violated the False Claims Act by knowingly misclassifying EpiPen, a branded epinephrine auto-injector drug, as a generic drug to avoid paying rebates owed to Medicaid; and the $13.4 million settlement against Medi-Lynx Cardiac Monitoring, LLC, AMI Monitoring, Inc., Spectocor LLC, and others, including one individual officer, for medically- unnecessary cardiac monitoring services that were billed to the government.
It is a privilege to do this work and be entrusted with the lives and fortunes of whistleblowers who risk so much to protect us all.
-Suzanne E. Durrell
Ms. Durrell and Mr. Thomas have been representing whistleblowers for over fifteen years and, now joined by David Lieberman, have helped the government recover over $5.5 billion on behalf of taxpayers.