Lengthy false claims case ends

Pump maker won’t pay fine

A false claims lawsuit filed more than 18 years ago against Deerfield Beachbased industrial pump maker Moving Water Industries came to an end this week with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review the case, the company announced in a press release.

“We’re very pleased that it ended and it ended in the way that I did,” said William E. Bucknam, vice president and general counsel for Moving Water Industries.

A South Florida whistleblower, Robert Purcell, who said he worked in national sales and later in Asia for the company, filed the case in federal court in Washington, D.C.

He and his law firm, Duane Morris, petitioned the nation’s highest court to hear the case in September after an appellate court overturned a verdict in Purcell’s favor.

Joe Aronica, an attorney with Duane Morris in Washington, said he and his client are disappointed. “We firmly believe the court of appeals was wrong when it dismissed the case. We believe both Mr. Purcell and the general public were denied justice as a result of that,” he said.

Purcell, 82, now retired in Boynton Beach, said the Justice Department presented “too narrow” a case leaving out key evidence, which is why he approached the Supreme Court.

“It has been a terrible injustice. The deck was stacked,” he said.

The government’s case against Moving Water Industries began in August 1998 when Purcell, a former employee, filed a sealed complaint under the whistleblower provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Allegations in the complaint related to eight sales to seven Nigerian states that were financed by the Export-Import Bank. In 2002, the Justice Department intervened on Purcell’s side and sought $223 million in damages from Moving Water Industries.

Purcell and the government won a jury verdict in 2013, when he was awarded $7.5 million on each of two counts under the False Claims Act. But that verdict was thrown out, with the U.S. Court of Appeals finding that “the government failed to establish that [Moving Water Industries] knowingly made a false claim.”

The trial centered around the meaning of “regular commission.” The government alleged that Moving Water Industries made false statements and submitted false claims by failing to disclose its agent’s commission.

Moving Water Industries maintained it had paid the agent the same commissions it had over a decade and was not required to disclose them on documents provided to the Export-Import Bank.

Then in February 2014, the District Court said Moving Water Industries owed nothing in damages because the $74.3 million in loans backed by Ex-Im Bank had been re-paid in full by Nigeria, along with $33.7 million in interest and fees. Still, the court assessed mandatory statutory civil penalties against the company amounting to $580,000.

In June of last year, the District Court denied the Justice Department’s petition for rehearing, and on August 18, 2016, a judgment was entered in favor of Moving Water Industries.