Whistleblower’s Eyewear Kickbacks Suit Revived by Ninth Circuit

A whistleblower may again allege that progressive lens maker Shamir USA Inc. engaged in a kickback scheme in violation of the False Claims Act because a lower court improperly relied on a public disclosure rule to dismiss the suit, the Ninth Circuit ruled Thursday.

A California district court said Richard Mark’s suit was precluded by the public disclosure bar for being based upon promotional articles Shamir disclosed through optical industry publications.

But the “information disseminated was so innocuous that there was no public disclosure” contemplated by the FCA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said in a ...