Shell has agreed to pay the United States more than $2.2 million to resolve a qui tam lawsuit claiming the company underpaid royalties owed on natural gas produced from Federal leases.

According to officials with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Justice, the total payment, including interest, is $2,287,145.74. “We are required to ensure that energy companies accurately report production and pay the required royalties,” Chris Henderson, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Department of Interior’s Office of Policy said. “We will continue to pursue any case where companies do not follow the rules.”

The settlement with Shell stems from a qui tam lawsuit filed by Harrold Wright. Because Mr. Wright is deceased, his descendents will receive $527,000 of the settlement. The lawsuit was handled by the Justice Department’s Civil Division and the Department of the Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

If you have information of fraud against the government, please contact the Whistleblower Attorneys of Tycko & Zavareei, LLP, by calling 202-973-0900.

Microsoft Corp. is seeking to put an end to qui tam litigation for false patent marking, the company said last week.

A post by Microsoft’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel Brad Smith and Vice President Deputy General Counsel Horacio Guitierrez, outlined aspects of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that the company believes need to be reformed. “In our view, the time has arrived to move beyond old controversies and focus on ensuring that the United States Patent and Trade Mark Office has the resources and tools it needs to improve patent quality and continues to tackle the enormous backlog it faces today,” the post said.

Smith and Guiteirrez said they company believes qui tam litigation for false patent marking, the practice wherein individuals can sue manufacturers for incorrectly including patent numbers on their products, should be a thing of the past. A qui tam lawsuit was filed last year against Apple, Sprint, Verizon, and Samsung which claimed the companies falsely marketed products with expired patents, or patents that did not cover the marked products, “with the intent to deceive the public about the patent coverage for their products.”

To speak with the Qui Tam Lawyers of Tycko & Zavareei, LLP, please call 202-973-0900.

St. Jude Medical has agreed to pay a $16 million settlement to end a qui tam lawsuit filed by a former employee.

The United States Department of Justice announced the settlement agreement on Tuesday. According to the Justice Department’s claims, St. Jude paid doctors as much as $2,000 per patient to convince them to have the company’s pacemakers and defibrillators implanted. The lawsuit alleged that St. Jude used three post-market studies and a medical device registry as cover for payments to doctors to entice them to implant their heart devices in patients.

The company solicited physicians to participate in the studies to get them to stop using competitor products and to continue to implant their patients with St. Jude devices.

In a press release, issued the same day the settlement was announced, St. Jude claimed that the post-market studies and registries were legitimate clinical studies used to gather “important scientific data.” The company stated the settlement is not an admission of guilt, and that it agreed to the terms to avoid the cost of lengthy litigation.

If you have information on health care fraud, please contact the Qui Tam Attorneys of Tycko & Zavareei, LLP, by calling 202-973-0900.