'Speed Bumps' "This is a really important move on the part of the federal government," said Erika Kelton, a lawyer at Phillips & Cohen LLP who represented two other whistleblowers. "Bringing it down to the individual executives who are responsible for overseeing marketing and making their pocketbooks feel it if they engage in further wrongdoing is really valuable." At least 41 whistleblower complaints against pharmaceutical companies have been filed in U.S. federal fraud cases that contained allegations of improper marketing between 1996 and 2010, leading to $7.9 billion in settlements, according to Aaron Kesselheim of the Harvard School of Public Health. Other settlements include the $2.3 billion Pfizer Inc. paid in 2009 over the marketing of its Bextra painkiller and other drugs and the $1.4 billion Eli Lilly & Co. paid the same year over sales of its Zyprexa anti-psychotic medicine.