The victory after a jury trial is believed to be one of the largest recoveries in a qui tam False Claims Act lawsuit involving import duty evasion and customs fraud.
A federal court in California has awarded $24 million damages—and an additional $2.7 million in attorney’s fees—to a corporate qui tam whistleblower that successfully sued a rival company rival under the False Claims Act claiming that it unlawfully evaded anti-dumping duties on “welded outlet” imports from China. The whistleblower—Tennessee-based Island Industries, Inc.—accused importer Sigma Corp. of being able to undersell law-abiding competitors like Island only by cheating U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on the tariffs.