Akin Gump on $296 Million Boston Scientific Defibrillator Settlement with Justice Department
By Ben Hallman
November 06, 2009
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'Tis the season for Boston Scientific to put old disputes to bed. On Friday, a month after the company agreed to pay Johnson & Johnson $726 million to end 14 heart stent patent suits, the company announced it would pay $296 million to resolve a Justice Department investigation into failures of its Guidant division to disclose problems with some implantable defibrillators. Here's Boston Scientific's press release on the settlement, and here's The Wall Street Journal's story about it.The Litigation Daily has confirmed that Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld represented Boston Scientific in the Justice settlement, but as of Friday afternoon, a firm spokesperson could not divulge the names of the attorneys involved.
The Guidant defibrillator has been the source of litigation since Guidant issued a June 2005 recall that eventually involved 109,000 devices. Lawyers for patients contended that the company actually knew as early as June 2002 that the devices were flawed and hid the defects to protect sales. In 2007, Boston Scientific, represented by Shook, Hardy & Bacon, agreed on the eve of trial to pay $195 million to settle more than 8,000 suits claiming that Guidant failed to disclose defects in its defibrillators.
Boston Scientific had previously disclosed an investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis into alleged violations of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act by Guidant. As part of the deal, Guidant will plead guilty to two criminal misdemeanors for failing to include information about the defibrillators in reports it made to the Food and Drug Administration to the problems.
