"This investigation uncovered evidence that health care decisions were being made based on a doctor's wallet and not on a patient's well-being," said Weysan Dun, the agent in charge of the FBI's New Jersey division, quoted the Associated Press. DePuy will pay $84.7 million of the total agreement amount.

DePuy has been making headlines in recent months for its devices' higher-than-normal failure rates that have resulted in patients requiring revision surgery. Revision surgery involves removal of the defective DePuy implant and reimplantation with a different device in a surgical procedure that is considered risky because the reimplantation takes longer than a first implantation and must be done while working with less bone surface area than the original surgery.

A design flaw in how the metal hip cup was created, in which the interior is insufficient to hold the hip's femoral portion, appears to be to blame, potentially impacting tens of thousands of patient. The recalled devices have been implanted in about 93,000 patients.  Meanwhile, lawsuits are mounting, a Multidistrict litigation has been organized before Judge Katz in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and numerous state actions have been filed.

If you have been implanted with one of these defective devices, you should immediately seek advice from a lawyer that is knowledgeable about the DePuy hip implant recall and the injuries associated with these hip implants. For a free consultation with such an attorney, complete the form to the right or call 212-566-1000.  Based in New York City, Sullivan & Brill, LLP represents clients throughout the United States.