Whistleblower Statute of Limitations
Whistleblower often inquiry about how long after a party defrauds the government do they have to file a false claims act. There is not a quick and simple answer to this question. The statute provides that a civil action under the False Claims Act must be brought within six years of the violation or within three years of the date when the government learned or should have...
False Claims Act as it Relates to Architects, Engineers and Design Professionals (A Virginia Continuing Education Presentation)
Below is a PowerPoint presentation that I prepared and presented as a continuing education course for architects, engineers and other design professionals in Virginia. It gives a summary of the False Claims Act, includes some history and then looks specifically at how the act applies to these professions. At the end of the embedded presentation, I have also included a link in the PowerPoint...
Whistleblower Must be First to File
As a general rule, for a whistleblower to recover in a False Claims Act case, he or she must be the first to file suit. This is a statutory requirement pursuant to 31 U.S.C. Section 3737(b)(5). Furthermore, there are a few policy reasons typically cited that support the law. First, the government wants to give incentives to whistleblowers to come forward quickly....
Factors in Determining Whistleblower Compensation (ex rel Peterson v. Sanborn) part 2
In the last post, I was discussing how the court in a recent whistleblower case determined the percentage of recovery that would be awarded to the whistleblower (relator). In this case, there were clearly factors that justified a higher percentage of recovery, but also factors that weighed against the relator.
In its analysis, the court first recognized that the award to the...
Factors in Determining Whistleblower Compensation (U.S. ex rel. Peterson v. Sanborn Map)
As discussed in a recent post, a whistleblower is typically entitled to a percentage of the of total recovery the government receives from a party that has defrauded the government. When the government intervenes in a case, this percentage is set by statute to be at least 15% of the proceeds of the action or settlement, but not more than 25%. As a general rule, the whistleblower (also...
Underbidding and the False Claims Act
On August 2, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in United States ex rel. Hooper v. Lockheed Martin Corp., holding that underbidding on a $900 million government contract creates liability under the False Claims Act.
The ruling marks the first time a federal court of appeals has considered whether underbidding constitutes a violation under the qui tam...