Attorney Authored
Are the False Claims Act’s Procedural Requirements Mandatory?
February 04, 2015
BY KENNETH GAGE & SEAN SMITH
False Claims Act litigation is becoming more and more common, especially in the health-care industry. The economic incentives for individuals (often employees or former employees) are tremendous.
Like the Dodd-Frank Whistleblower provisions, which have received increasing attention of late, the FCA provides that plaintiffs (referred to as ‘‘relators’’) can obtain a percentage of the government’s total recovery if they are ultimately successful.
In some cases, those ‘‘bounty’’ provisions have led to eye-popping awards to whistleblowers in the tens of millions of dollars. It is little wonder that the number of qui tam FCA filings in recent years have been as many as twenty-five times the number that they were in mid- 1980s.
Reproduced with permission from BNA’s Health Care Fraud Report, Feb. 4, 2015, 02/04/2015. Copyright 2015 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) http://www.bna.com.