Last year witnessed significant developments in False Claims Act enforcement, including a record-breaking number of new FCA cases. In this update, we cover recent developments in FCA jurisprudence, summarize significant enforcement activity, and analyze the most notable legislative, policy, and caselaw developments from the second half of calendar year 2024, picking up where our mid-year 2024 update left off.
Last year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and qui tam relators smashed 2023’s all-time record for the number of newly filed False Claims Act (FCA) cases. While monetary recoveries from FCA cases in 2024 remained largely in line with trends over the last decade, 2024’s figure was still the highest in three years, coming in just shy of $3 billion. As in previous years, the lion’s share of this figure (approximately $2.2 billion) came from qui tam suits filed by private relators where DOJ subsequently intervened.
Another noteworthy 2024 development threatens to derail this enforcement train. In September 2024, a Florida federal court ruled the FCA’s qui tam provisions unconstitutional under the Appointments Clause. Ordinarily, that decision, in United States ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, LLC, would seem unlikely to survive the Eleventh Circuit’s scrutiny, given the other cases previously holding that qui tam suits are constitutional. But Zafirov tracks statements by three Supreme Court Justices last year that they had questions about the...
Sean 'Diddy' Combs has filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Courtney Burgess, her attorney Ariel Mitchell, and NewsNation. The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims ...