Qui tam claims are lawsuits filed by private citizens on behalf of the federal government based on allegations that someone violated the False Claims Act (FCA) or another federal statute. Most of the time these types of claims are brought by employees, or ex-employees, who were able to gather evidence…
There was an unexpected outcome in the unique case of Wadler v. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., et al., when a federal judge in the Northern District of California ruled the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts’ whistleblower protections preempted attorney-client privilege. This ruling allowed Sanford Wadler, the former general counsel of Bio-Rad Laboratories,…
The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California granted whistleblowers a significant victory this year. In the case of Erhart v. BofI Holdings, Inc., the district court found an employee’s confidentiality agreement with his or her employer did not trump federal whistleblower’s rights. In some circumstances, employees can…
In December 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court determined in State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. United States ex rel. Rigsby that a violation of the False Claims Act (FCA) seal requirement does not require an automatic dismissal of the case. This is good news for whistleblowers and the U.S.…
We talk a lot about the False Claims Act (“FCA” or “the Act”)) on this blog. We do that because it is a powerful tool that allows ordinary Americans to take a stand and fight fraud. The frauds it fights are frauds perpetrated against the government and government programs, frauds…
Readers of this blog know that the False Claims Act and its state equivalents are powerful tools for fighting fraud on the government and, in turn, on taxpayers. One of the reasons these laws are so powerful is that they cover a wide-range of frauds. Although health care fraud is…