Qui Tam & Whistleblower Cases - Two billion dollar days for the US Attorney in a row!
Two billion dollar days for the US Attorney in a row! On January 6, Johnson & Johnson settled a U.S. probe into their anti-psychotic drug, Risperdal, for $1,000,000,000! According to the Bloomberg news, J&J is going to resolve their long running dispute over Risperdal for a whopping $1 billion. This settlement should cover all the damages each individual state has against J&J as well as the US government’s federal claims. Given GlaxoSmithKlein just settled a claim for $3.2 billion, this settlement shouldn’t hurt J&J too badly. Johnson & Johnson is the largest health product company in the world. If Glaxo can pay $3 billion and that doesn’t count the civil claims against them for Avandia, certainly J&J is better off settling for $1 billion now. The civil settlement may not have included a possible plea deal against Johnson for criminal penalties! Now that is HARSH! They are going to pay $1 billion and STILL pay a criminal price for their allegedly illegal sales practices. The investigation against Risperdal has been going on since 2004. The allegation is that the company was “off label” marketing the drug. That means the drug was being marketed for uses that were not approved by the FDA.
In this case, the Whistleblowing Qui Tam Plaintiff could earn $150,000,000!
Interestingly, the civil cases against J&J for Risperdal have been varied, with two states finding for against the company while two other states found for the company. We will see how this settlement effects the pending civil litigation in the future.
