The False Claims Act (FCA), enacted during the Civil War to combat widespread fraud by Union Army suppliers, prohibits knowingly submitting “false claims” for payment to the government. FCA claims can be initiated by the government or private citizens—qui tam relators—on the government’s behalf, based on new, non-public information. The government can intervene in the case, or allow relators to proceed alone; in successful suits, FCA provides for triple damages and per-claim penalties, and successful relators receive a share of the recovery. That financial incentive is key: as one sponsor of the original FCA explained, the government was “holding out a temptation and setting a rogue to catch a rogue, which is the safest and most expeditious way I have ever discovered of bringing rogues to justice.”
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