False Claims Act Laws

The False Claims Act (FCA) targets fraud against the federal government.  The Act prohibits, among other things:

• Knowingly presenting (or causing to be presented) a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval;
• Knowingly making or using (or causing to be made or used) a false record or statement material to a false or fraudulent claim;
• Conspiring to violate the FCA;
• Knowingly making or using (or causing to be made or used) a false record or statement material to an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the government; and
• Knowingly concealing or knowingly and improperly avoiding or decreasing an obligation to pay or transmit money or property to the government.
• “Knowingly” means only “deliberate ignorance” or “reckless disregard” of the truth.

The FCA also requires persons and companies found to have violated the Act to pay back three times the actual damages suffered and penalties of $5,500 to $11,000 for each false claim. To read the full text of the federal False Claims Act, click here to be redirected to the Taxpayers Against Fraud (TAF) website.

Although originally enacted during the Civil War to help the government stem war profiteering, the False Claims Act has more recently become a powerful tool for uncovering fraud and abuse of numerous federal government programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare.

This is due to the Act’s whistleblower or “qui tam” provisions, which encourage citizens and their attorneys to “blow the whistle” on private parties that defraud government programs.The key qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act are:

• Successful whistleblowers may recover a reward of at least 15% and up to 30% of the funds they help the government recover;
• If retaliated against for coming forward, whistleblowers may also have an action for retaliation; and,
• Whistleblowers and their lawyers continue to participate in the suits if and when the government joins.

States and municipalities have enacted similar legislation.