In U.S. v. Rogan et al., the United States alleges violations of the False Claims Act and certain common law claims, including fraud, against defendants. The government alleges that defendants (two partnerships, an individual partner, and a corporation), provided kickbacks and illegal inducements to physicians who referred large volumes of patients, including Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, to a hospital operated by the defendants. The defendants moved to have the allegations dismissed for failure to plead fraud with particularity. The Northern District Court of Illinois denied the defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the allegations of kickbacks and improper inducements and the identification of certain cost reports in the complaint were adequate to satisfy the requirements of Rule 9(b). Further, because a former senior vice president of the hospital who was an employee of one of the companies that managed the hospital signed the cost reports containing the alleged fraudulent claims, the defendants were deemed to know "these claims for payment to be false or acted with deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard as to their falsity." The court stated that "in cases of corporate fraud where the false or misleading information is conveyed in prospectuses, registration statements, annual reports, press releases, or other 'group-published information,' it is reasonable to presume that these are the collective actions of the officers." The Court concluded, "(t)hus, it is reasonable to presume that the allegedly false statements in the cost reports were the collective actions of the officers of (the defendants)."

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