Reforming the False Claims Act for the 21st Century
The May 2014 edition of Contract Management features this article by WilmerHale attorneys, David W. Ogden and Jonathan G. Cederbaum, about the need to reform the False Claims Act.
The authors, along with with Peter Hutt and Anna Dolinsky of Akin Gump, authored “Fixing the False Claims Act: The Case for Compliance-Focused Reforms,” issued by ILR at the 2013 Legal Reform Summit. The Contract Management piece draws heavily from that paper.
“As now constituted, the FCA fails to realize its potential to stop fraud before it happens and punishes companies even if they are trying to do the right thing,” write the authors in the introduction to the article. “But relatively modest adjustments could strengthen its anti-fraud incentives while promoting more effective compliance.”
As ILR asserts on our False Claims Act issue resource page, “Since the law was expanded in 1986, plaintiffs’ lawyers have built a cottage industry around qui tam (False Claims Act) lawsuits – netting tens of millions for whistleblowers and their lawyers instead of for taxpayers. In fact, the current application of the law is so unbalanced that some whistleblowers are receiving monetary awards for information on violations that they committed.”
