Attorney General Jeff Jackson Announces $40 Million Settlement with Grocery Chain Owner Over Inflated Drug Prices

Attorney General Jeff Jackson announced a $40 million multistate settlement with Ahold Delhaize, the international grocery retailer that owns Food Lion, Giant, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop, to resolve False Claims Act allegations related to inflated prescription drug pricing. North Carolina will receive $503,460 in restitution and other recoveries as its share of the settlement. The allegations center on Ahold Delhaize's prescription savings programs, which offered pharmacy members discounted prices on prescription drugs. Under Medicare Part D, Medicaid, and TRICARE rules, those discounted prices were required to be reported as the pharmacies' "usual and customary" prices on claims submitted to those programs, because usual and customary prices are used to determine reimbursement amounts. Instead, the supermarket pharmacies allegedly reported inflated usual and customary prices on claims submitted to Medicare Part D, Medicaid, and TRICARE, causing those programs to overpay for prescription drugs. The settlement resolves a whistleblower lawsuit originally filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The investigation and settlement were negotiated by the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units team, including the North Carolina Department of Justice and the attorneys general offices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, working alongside the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania.