Judge Denies Move to Dismiss Auction Case Against Dish

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the District of Columbia Thursday denied a motion by Dish Network designated entities Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless for judgment based on the pleadings in a case examining Vermont National Telephone and DOJ allegations of fraud in the 2015 AWS-3 auction. “These allegations were exhaustively litigated before the FCC in an antecedent administrative proceeding and in the court of public opinion,” the court said. "As a result, Defendants argue that the Court should dismiss this case pursuant to the False Claim Act’s ‘public-disclosure’ provision, which requires a Court to dismiss a qui tam action where the fraud allegations were known to the federal government in advance of a relator’s commencement of suit in federal court.” But that provision “is subject to a crucial and dispositive exception: where the United States opposes dismissal,” Kollar-Kotelly said. In this the government “opposes dismissal of all claims, vitiating Defendants’ reliance on the FCA’s ‘public-disclosure’ provision,” she said. Qui tam actions allow private individuals to sue on behalf of the government to recover money that was fraudulently obtained by a person or corporation.