A judge for a U.S. federal court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a former employee against the parent company of Siemens Healthcare that accused the vendor of paying kickbacks in China related to medical equipment purchases.
Meng-Lin Liu had filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that he had uncovered a scheme to turn in inflated bids to sell medical equipment, including MRI and CT scanners, to hospitals in China and North Korea. The allegations charged that the equipment was sold at lower prices to middlemen, who sold the scanners to the hospitals at full price. Liu claims he was fired after presenting evidence of the alleged scheme to Siemens management.
Liu charged Siemens with violating the antiretaliation provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, which states that employees can't be dismissed or punished for lawful acts that are required or protected under any U.S. laws under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
But in an October 21 ruling, Judge William H. Pauley of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit on grounds of jurisdiction, stating that U.S. law didn't apply in a case "brought by a Taiwanese resident against a German corporation for acts concerning its Chinese subsidiary relating to alleged corruption in China and North Korea. ... There is simply no indication that Congress intended the Anti-Retaliation Provision to apply extraterritorially."
