Illinois Paves the Way for Stronger State Fraud Prosecutions

Governor Patrick Quinn and Illinois lawmakers have strengthened the Illinois whistleblower law to ensure that scarce state resources are not wasted on paying for fraudulent schemes.

Governor Quinn signed into law amendments to the Illinois False Claims Act, making Illinois the first state in the country to strengthen its false claims act to mirror the federal False Claims Act (FCA), which was amended in May 2009.  The new amendments improve the working relationship between private whistleblowers and state prosecutors in the same way as the recent federal law amendments.

The Illinois amendments also give the Illinois Attorney General and state regulators more ammunition to aggressively fight fraud against state-funded programs such as Medicaid.  These amendments were passed less than a year after Illinois achieved a $7 million recovery against the University of Chicago Medical Center resulting from a Medicaid fraud qui tam action filed by Whistleblower Action Network attorneys.

The revised Illinois law is a significant forward step towards enhancing the public-private partnership between citizen-whistleblowers and state prosecutors, thereby improving states’ ability to fight fraud and recover money for their taxpayers.  In recent years, states have begun playing greater roles in prosecuting nationwide fraud schemes alongside the federal government.  Coordinated federal-state prosecutions have led to some of the largest recoveries in the history of the False Claims Act.

The revised Illinois law should also create greater federal-state cooperation by bringing the state’s investigatory powers more in line with the federal government’s.  Other states are likely to follow suit, thus discouraging companies from profiting at the public’s expense.