Month: April 2023

“From the moment this case was filed more than five years ago, we’ve always maintained that it has absolutely no merit. Discovery has proven that. As the Court found, there is no evidence that Deloitte billed the City of San Diego for work it did not do,” said counsel for Deloitte Consulting, Joseph Reiter.

This case arose out of a large, multi-year project the City of San Diego began in 2014 to overhaul its enterprise asset management system. The City hired Deloitte to provide professional consulting services, including the implementation and integration of software designed by co-defendant SAP America, Inc. Plaintiff Thomas Rocco, a former SAP employee, alleged that Deloitte and SAP had violated numerous conflicts of interest laws and conspired to defraud the City of San Diego out of public funds. Rocco claimed, among other things, that Deloitte had billed the City for work it did not perform, exchanged illegal kickbacks with SAP, intentionally concealed conflicts of interest, and rigged the City’s bidding system in violation of California’s False Claims Act and Government Code 1090. Rocco sought to invalidate the contract between Deloitte Consulting and the City and obtain treble damages and fines in excess of $75 million.

We obtained early dismissal of Rocco’s sprawling complaint, winning three successive demurrers and obtaining dismissal with prejudice of all of Rocco’s claims against Deloitte in December 2019. On appeal, the California Court of Appeal affirmed dismissal with prejudice on all but one of Rocco’s theories against Deloitte – that Deloitte had billed the City of San Diego for GIS (geographic information systems) work that Deloitte did not perform. After remittitur, the case proceeded to discovery in the trial court where Hueston Hennigan defeated Rocco’s repeated attempts to revive allegations and theories that had been dismissed with prejudice.

On April 14, 2023, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly A. Knill granted Hueston Hennigan’s motion for summary judgment on Rocco’s sole remaining claim, finding there is no evidence that Deloitte submitted false claims for payment to the City of San Diego. In addition, the court found that Rocco’s claim is barred by the False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar because he relied on documents obtained from public record act requests. The court’s order reflects a complete victory for Deloitte and maintains the integrity of its work on an important project for the City of San Diego.

The Hueston Hennigan team included John Hueston, Joseph Reiter, Ashley Artmann, and Zach Murray.

Aside from requiring Vital — which does business as VPX — and its former CEO Jack Owoc to stop selling cans, packages or labels of Bang featuring the words “creatine,” the judge also ordered the company to remove or cause to be removed any Bang product that features the word “creatine” from store shelves within 60 days.

The permanent injunction requires the company for 30 days to post on any website or social media account it uses to promote Bang a corrective statement about the jury’s false advertising verdict and cease claiming in advertising and marketing that Bang contains creatine or “super creatine,” or provides any of the physical or mental health benefits associated with creatine.

“Defendants argue that VPX must continue to sell Super Creatine labeled cans because the destruction of its existing cans ‘would cause millions of dollars in losses, severely disrupt VPX’s supply lines and business relationships, and leave VPX unable to fill existing customer orders or meet consumer demands,” U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal wrote in an order issuing the permanent injunction. “But defendants have brought on themselves these unfortunate consequences through their false advertising.”

John C. Hueston of Hueston Hennigan LLP, who represents Monster, said in a statement that the injunction “is another important victory for our client Monster in an effort to prevent further harm from Bang’s and its founder’s campaign of false statements that we brought to light during our hard-fought trial. Defendants are enjoined and must issue corrective statements to, as the court put it, ‘remedy lingering confusion caused by defendants’ past and ongoing deception.’”

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