Murphy Anderson Whistleblower Wins Large Jury Verdict
A jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned a verdict in favor of the United States and Murphy Anderson client Kurt Bunk, awarding $33.6 million in single damages and finding over 58,000 false claims in a False Claims Act lawsuit against Gosselin, a Belgian moving company.
Single damages are trebled in False Claims Act cases. Moreover, the penalty for each false claim is assessed between $5,500 and $11,000, meaning the jury verdict could possibly exceed $638 million. Whistleblowers are entitled to between 15% and 25% of the recovery.
The case involved false claims related to a bid-rigging scheme among various European moving companies that moved the personal property of American military personnel across the Atlantic.
Murphy Anderson served as appellate counsel and local trial counsel in this long-running case. DOJ attorneys at trial were Andrew Steinberg, Meredith Toole and Mary Chris Dobbie. The Relators' trial team was headed by Richard Greenberg and John Petite of the Greensfelder law firm in St. Louis and Mark Hanna of Murphy Anderson. Ann Lugbill and Mark Hanna filed the case in 2002.