False Claims Act
Case Summary
The 1986 amendments to the Act, of which CLIPI was the key proponent, provide financial incentives to encourage people to report fraud and overcharges by guaranteeing “whistleblowers” between 15% and 30% of the amount the government recovers. CLIPI’s ground-breaking FCA cases ultimately recover many millions of dollars of overcharges to the federal treasury. CLIPI’s trailblazing work on FCA legislation reforms to facilitate whistleblower claims that individuals or companies have defrauded the U.S. government, and allowing whistleblowers to obtain a part of the government’s recovery; to date, FCA recoveries on behalf of the federal government under the new FCA provisions have totaled well over $42 billion, while whistleblowers who have pursued such “qui tam” actions have recovered nearly $350 million.
Additional Information
In three qui tam cases brought under the newly amended False Claims Act, CLIPI alleges that Teledyne, Litton Computer Systems and the Singer Company have overcharged the federal government for military-related goods and services. The False Claims Act, called the "Lincoln Law," was originally passed because businessmen were defrauding the Union Army by cutting gunpowder with sawdust and selling the same horses over and over to the cavalry. Over the years, its effectiveness was undermined by a series of court decisions, but a rash of highly publicized overcharges during the Reagan Administration, such as the sale of $500 hammers and coffee pots to the armed forces, stimulated widespread interest in reviving the law. The 1986 amendments to the Act, of which CLIPI was the key proponent, provide financial incentives to encourage people to report fraud and overcharges by guaranteeing "whistleblowers" between 15% and 30% of the amount the government recovers. CLIPI's ground-breaking FCA cases ultimately recover many millions of dollars of overcharges to the federal treasury. Subsequently, the private bar successfully litigates qui tam recoveries now in the billions of dollars.
Where were at today
Seeking never to miss an opportunity, Trump officials are presently asserting that, when entities bill the federal government without disclosing their unlawful DEI efforts, they are submitting false claims perhaps totaling in the billions.
