Dish Network Wants Rehearing in FCC License Auction Fraud Case

Dish Network Inc. wants a rehearing to argue that a D.C. Circuit panel improperly revived a False Claims Act suit alleging that the company used sham small businesses to win FCC communications licenses worth billions of dollars.

A panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled May 17 that the FCA’s government-action bar didn’t preclude the suit by whistleblower Vermont National Telephone Co.

The bar precludes suits “based upon allegations or transactions which are the subject of a civil suit or an administrative civil money penalty proceeding in which the government is already a party.”

Vermont ...