Tag: False Claims Act

Image of the Department of Justice building with a U.S. flag hanging from it

DOJ’s New Guidance on Civil Cooperation Credit Provides Some Answers, but the Bigger Question Remains

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Jacob T. Elberg

The health care industry and the white-collar defense bar have eagerly awaited guidance from the Department of Justice regarding the impact of corporate cooperation and self-disclosure on the resolution of civil False Claims Act (FCA) cases, the primary tool for government action in response to corporate misconduct in the health care industry.

Statements from DOJ officials raised anticipation over the past several months that guidance would be forthcoming. The guidance arrived on May 7, 2019, and focuses on answering the question of what conduct will constitute cooperation in the eyes of DOJ.

Unfortunately, the announcement fails to answer the question industry and the defense bar have been asking: how much credit will be given for cooperation and self-disclosure? Read More

Recommended Reading: New Empirical Analysis of False Claims Act Whistleblower Litigation

kgreenwood Leave a comment

By Kate Greenwood
[Cross-posted at Health Reform Watch]

Late last year, the Columbia Law Review published David Freeman Engstrom’s Private Enforcement’s Pathways: Lessons from Qui Tam Litigation, the fourth in a series of articles Professor Engstrom has written on the growth and evolution of qui tam litigation. (My colleague Associate Dean Kathleen Boozang wrote about the first three at Jotwell, here.) Private Enforcement’s Pathways, like the articles that precede it, brings a welcome dose of data and empirical analysis to a controversial area of the law, the debate over which has at times generated more heat than light.

Professor Engstrom’s analysis rests on a database he built containing information on the roughly 6,000 unsealed FCA cases that have concluded in a litigated judgments or settlement since 1986. In response to Freedom of Information Act requests, the Department of Justice provided information on the judicial district in which each case was filed, the date that DOJ decided whether or not to join each case, and the outcome of each case (including the amount, if any, that the government recovered and the whistleblower’s share of that recovery). DOJ also provided the date of filing for the 3,000 cases filed since 1986 that remain under seal, as well as for the 6,000 unsealed cases. From PACER, Professor Engstrom retrieved information on the parties, law firms, and individual lawyers involved in each unsealed case. Read More