The Department of Justice may end up joining a False Claims Act case to collect the $30 Million recovery won by the relator but then subsequently overturned by Judge Phillip Figa citing that fact that if a relator is dismissed from a case, the court still has subject matter jurisdiction if it intervenes. After the verdict was returned by the jury in the Kerr-McGee case finding that the company cheated the federal government, the judge ruled that the whistleblower did not qualify to bring the case under the False Claims Act because the wrongdoing had already been disclosed to the government. Up until that point, the Department of Justice did not intervene in the case.
On April 11, 2007, however, the Department of Justice indicated that they are interested in the $30 million the jury said was defrauded by Kerr-McGee and has requested the judge to grant them time to decide whether to intervene.
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