The Qui Tam Team

Oil company Chevron has agreed to finally settle a thirteen and a half year-old False Claims Act suit for $45.5 million. The suit claimed that Chevron knowingly, grossly underpaid royalties it owed to various federal land and American Indian land leases. Chevron allegedly lied about how much natural gas they were producing from the land included in the leases. Company representatives, however, have claimed that the settlement does not mean that Chevron is admitting any wrongdoing. They claim that the settlement is to merely end the legal costs of defending themselves for over thirteen years. A whopping total of $12.3 million will go to the estate of Harrold Wright, the whistleblower in the case. The rest of the settlement money will be paid to the federal government and the Indian nations from which the land was leased.

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