Marlene Koury

Marlene Koury is a partner in the San Francisco office of Constantine Cannon. Ms. Koury began her career in New York with a focus on antitrust litigation in the healthcare sector, and went on to co-found the firm’s whistleblower practice, which has grown over the last decade into the preeminent whistleblower practice in the country.

Ms. Koury is a seasoned litigator and a nationally recognized expert in healthcare fraud. She was named one of the 500 leading plaintiff financial lawyers by Lawdragon five years in a row, from 2019 to 2023.  Over the past decade, Ms. Koury has represented whistleblowers in variety of matters alleging fraud against the government, including in areas of home health care, risk adjustment, for-profit education fraud, Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, coverage and coding, the marketing and promotion of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, clinical research, and kickbacks.

Ms. Koury served as co-lead counsel on U.S. ex. rel. Lacey v. Visiting Nurse Service of New York, a qui tam action in which she recently secured a $57 million settlement for her whistleblower client, New York, and the United States. The case alleged the defendant home health agency failed to provide patients all the critical visits and services their doctors prescribed in patient Plans of Care. Lacey is the first reported False Claims Act settlement involving allegations of a home health agency failing to follow patient Plans of Care, and it is the largest non-kickback FCA settlement ever against a home health care company. Read more about the case and record settlement here.

Ms. Koury is currently representing whistleblowers in several unsealed and sealed matters alleging multimillion-dollar frauds against the government. As to unsealed whistleblower matters, Ms. Koury represents two virologists in U.S. ex. rel. Krahling v. Merck, in which Relators allege, among other things, that Merck defrauded the government by concealing the significantly diminished efficacy of its mumps vaccine, which the CDC has purchased for hundreds of millions of dollars. Ms. Koury also represents a whistleblower in an intervened Medicare Advantage qui tam suit against UnitedHealth Group alleging billions of dollars in damages. Ms. Koury also represented the plaintiff in a Medicare fraud case, U.S. ex. rel. Beeson v. Rose Cancer Center, that was resolved through a $5.7 million forfeiture and a criminal conviction against the defendant.

In addition to her extensive litigation skills, Ms. Koury has a decade of experience working alongside attorneys in the U.S. Department of Justice and at various state attorney general offices, providing critical support to investigations undertaken by those offices. Additionally, Ms. Koury’s fluency in antitrust enables her to lead matters that straddle whistleblower and antitrust law.

Featured posts

Marlene Koury's Publications & Speeches

Jun232023
Opinion: The Titan sub implosion was a preventable tragedy

Whistleblower attorneys Marlene Koury and Chris McLamb were published in Los Angeles Times, Opinion: The Titan sub implosion was a preventable tragedy (June 23, 2023).

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Aug302022
Eli Lilly Verdict Offers Insight Into FCA Scienter Battle

Whistleblower attorneys Leah Judge and Marlene Koury were published in Law360, Eli Lilly Verdict Offers Insight Into FCA Scienter Battle (August 30, 2022).

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Jun42021
The Dawn of Antitrust Whistleblowing

Marlene Koury and Kristian Soltes published an article with the American Bar Association, The Dawn of Antitrust Whistleblowing (June 4, 2021).

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Feb182016
IRS Whistleblower Report to Congress Signals a Brighter Future

AccountingWEB (February 18, 2016) Click here to read the article.

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Jul162015
Celebrating the first five years of Dodd-Frank

The Hill (July 16, 2015) Click here to read the article.

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Oct242013
Falling for the Fraud

By Marlene Koury We have all been the target of one of those too-good-to-be-true fraud schemes at one time or another.  From the promises of...

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Jun272013
How to Prevent the Next Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden

Roll Call (June 27, 2013) Click here to read the article.

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Dec72012
A Watchful Antitrust Eye in Healthcare

BNA Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report (December 7, 2012) download PDF

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Nov272012
Lesson Learned from the Petraeus Affair - Intelligence Agents Need Whistleblower Protections Too

The Hill (November 27, 2012) Click here to read the article.

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Sep262012
Two U.S. Courts Offer Conflicting Guidance On Protections for Internal Reporting

Thompson Reuters (September 26, 2012) download PDF

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Sep112012
Dodd-Frank Provisions Cause Whistleblower Dilemma

American Banker (September 11, 2012) download PDF

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Sep12012
Toward a Future, Wiser Court: A Blueprint for Overturning District of Columbia v. Heller

Fordham Urban Law Journal (Fall 2012) Click here to read the article.

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Jun12012
A Stalled Farewell to Arms—Reinvigorating the Gun Control Movement

NYSBA Government, Law and Policy Journal (Summer 2012) Reprinted with permission from : Government, Law and Policy Journal, Summer 2012, Vol. 14, No. 1, published...

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Feb162012
Making It Easier To Whistle While You Work

Law360 (February 16, 2012) download PDF

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Jan202009
Boosting the Economy by More Use Of the 'Weakened Firm Defense'

New York Law Journal (January 20, 2009)

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