Healthcare Disputes & Investigations

Life sciences and healthcare companies rely on Goodwin’s extensive courtroom prowess, business acumen, and comprehensive regulatory experience to effectively defend their interests and achieve optimal results in False Claims Act cases, state and federal government investigations, antitrust matters, intellectual property disputes, and commercial disputes.

We have a long track record of success defending clients in FCA qui tam litigation and fraud and abuse investigations. When an enforcement matter arises, our Healthcare Government Enforcement team partners with our deep regulatory bench to advocate and litigate for our clients before government agencies, responding to Civil Investigative Demands, seeking DOJ declination of sealed qui tam cases, and litigating against whistleblowers and federal and state agencies when necessary.

Another aspect of our healthcare litigation capabilities is successfully handling ERISA claims relating to the funding, payment, and coverage of healthcare provided through employer-sponsored benefit plans.  Our market-leading ERISA Litigation team handles the most complex, technical, and novel claims involving employer-sponsored benefit plans—including health plans—leveraging our deep healthcare expertise across the firm.

As part of our healthcare litigation practice, publicly-traded clients can rely on our Securities Litigation team’s extensive experience representing healthcare and life sciences companies at all stages of investigation and handling precedent-setting securities class actions and derivative litigation. We have a broad understanding of the issues most often faced by our clients at the pre-clinical, clinical testing, regulatory approval, post-FDA approval and commercial stages. Recent issues handled by our team include litigation involving enrollment delays, serious adverse events, sales and marketing practices, billing and reimbursement issues, regulatory inspections and warnings, and supply and manufacturing issues. Our securities litigators also work with our transactional and regulatory teams to advise clients on disclosures to proactively mitigate risk and, if litigation is unavoidable, to obtain dismissal at the earliest stages. Our ability to leverage our deep industry knowledge in the courtroom is a key differentiator for our healthcare and life sciences clients.

Healthcare companies also look to Goodwin to address all their most important competition-related issues. Our antitrust lawyers are immersed in the legal issues at the forefront of antitrust enforcement, with particular experience in issues involving the interaction of antitrust with intellectual property laws and FDA regulations. We have litigated cases and advised clients on matters involving reimbursement claims, licensing, sham litigation, settlement of IP litigation, reverse payments and patent hold-up with standard-setting organizations, among others.

We are well-prepared to handle the full range of challenges our clients face, and frequently represent U.S. and multinational companies, as well as boards and executives, in governmental and internal corporate investigations, white collar criminal defense, regulatory compliance and related civil litigation, as well as complex commercial litigation. While we resolve matters quickly and quietly in advance of litigation and public scrutiny where desirable, we are genuine trial lawyers who do not hesitate to try cases to verdict when appropriate.

Our team is cross-functional, leveraging the unparalleled sophistication of the firm’s supporting practices in the areas of Healthcare Government Enforcement & False Claims Act Defense, Securities + Shareholder Litigation, ERISA Litigation, Privacy + Cybersecurity, Technology, Executive Compensation, Labor + Employment and Tax.