The Federal Role Today

The Role of the Federal Government in Fighting Fraud under the False Claims Act

Through the False Claims Act, the federal government goes after liars, cheats and thieves who steal taxpayer money from the United States.

It’s a big job. The United States is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world – by far. Our government spends over $2.8 trillion dollars a year through contracts, grants, and other payments. Defense spending amounts to nearly a trillion dollars a year. Medicare and Medicaid cost over $500 billion. Education, agriculture and veterans affairs programs spend tens of billions more.

And fraud follows the money

The United States’ primary weapon to fight fraud against taxpayers is the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act cannot be used against all types of fraud – just fraud involving federal government money. Still, that makes for a big universe of potential problems.

Scores of federal prosecutors are dedicated to prosecuting False Claims Act cases, led by the United States Department of Justice. In addition, United States Attorneys in offices throughout the country take on False Claims Act prosecutions. These federal prosecutions may be criminal or civil (primarily depending on whether the government is seeking jail or money).

Federal prosecutors are assisted by federal investigators, auditors and agents from an alphabet soup of government agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Office of the Inspector General, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS OIG), Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – to name a few.

Yet, these resources are not enough to prosecute all the fraud perpetrated against the federal government. This is where you, the whistleblower, comes in, as an insider to ferret out fraud the government would have otherwise not found.

But even with whistleblower assistance, less than 20% of all whistleblower cases result in the federal government joining, or “intervening,” that is, assigning a federal attorney to prosecute a qui tam case filed by a citizen-whistleblower. False Claims Act cases where the federal government has intervened recover substantially more than those where the government has declined to intervene.

And this is where we, the lawyers at the Whistleblower Action Network, come in. We have extensive experience in working with federal prosecutors and agents. We have worked hard to earn a reputation for only bringing strong, well-prepared cases to their attention. Since your lawyer’s role in selecting, preparing and presenting cases to the federal government can be critical to the decision about whether and how the federal government responds to your case, it is critical that you choose lawyers who have a track record of success in False Claims Act prosecutions.