Court bumps Gen Digital false claims judgment to $53M

An opinion in a long-running court case involving software company Gen Digital and alleged violations of the False Claims Act saw proposed costs in the matter jump from $1.3 million to approximately $53 million following successful arguments by the U.S. government.

Gen Digital, formerly Symantec Corp. and NortonLifeLock, was accused by former employee Lori Morsell in 2012 of not appropriately disclosing certain discounts and rebates offered to customers in a manner that undermined a General Services Administration (GSA) contract. The U.S. government moved to intervene in the qui tam case.

The court initially calculated rebate damages at approximately $1.1 million and civil penalties at $231,000 in relation to the case. Arguments by the U.S. government regarding each total led to the opinion published Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras for the District of Columbia and new calculations of approximately $16.1 million in rebate damages and $36.9 million in civil penalties.