How Does the False Claims Act Work?

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What happens when a whistleblower has inside information of a government fraud, it can be for example, an accountant who sees there are false billings being submitted, it can be maybe someone who works at a vendor who provide services, and knows that the services being provided aren't really what the government is paying for. So when an insider has that kind of information, the key is that they be the first ones to actually file a complaint. The statute has very specific provisions on how that has to happen. First, the whistleblower has to do what is called the presentment to the Department of Justice and that's usually done at both the local US Attorneys office and the US Department of Justice. Now the way that the Department of Justice works...There's main Justice up in Washington and that's the federal agency that basically controls this particular area of the statute. It's within their umbrella the FBI, the IRS, Customs, DEA but the US Department of Justice also has the US Attorneys Office under their purview. The US Attorneys, every district in the country has a US Attorney. It can be, for example, here in Florida where our offices is, we have three districts: we have the northern, the middle and southern. And each one of those districts has a US attorney.The US Attorney is the lead prosecutor, they're are appointed by the president of United States, and under the US Attorney there are assistant US Attorneys who are the prosecutors, the folks who are actually on the line prosecuting federal crimes and prosecuting the civil cases involving False Claims Act. So when the whistleblower has evidence of false claim, first the statute says they have to present that claim, they have to basically prepare a package that contains a detailed list of the evidence that they have, any documents they've prepared, as much information as they can possibly put together within reason. They can't of course collect anything illegally, but that inside information has to be put together in a package and then taken and presented to both the US Attorneys office, which is the local office, and also to the Department of Justice up in Washington. Once that's done, then the relator, the relator is the technical term for the whistleblower...Then the whistleblower has to file a complaint, a complaint under the False Claims Act. Now, a complaint is a lawsuit, and that has to be filed in the local district court, or wherever the whistleblower has evidence of a fraud, and has to be filed very specifically under seal. And that's a specific provision dealing with the kind of lawsuit that's not public and there's a way to do it have to make sure it's the right way because the information can't be made public until such time as the government has made a decision whether to intervene or get involved and prosecute the case themselves or not. So again, the process is, to present the case to the US Attorneys office and to the Department of Justice, and then file a complaint under seal in the local jurisdiction. It's also very, very critical to all of this to be kept in the strictest of confidences, because at the end of the day, the whistleblower, or the relator, if the government does not intervene, stand in the shoes of government to prosecute the case on behalf of the Government. So presentment to the Attorneys Office and to the DOJ, then filing of the complaint under seal, and then the government gets time to basically consider whether or not to do when the call is...to intervene in the case. And intervention is basically when the government makes decision to take the case on themselves. If the government then decides "We want to get involved in this, we like this, we feel that the evidence is good, we're going to prosecute this ourselves". The whistleblower then basically stands on the sidelines and acts as a partner with the government to assist the government moving forward with the case. If that happens, then the government gets a recovery and then the whistleblower gets a percentage of the government's ultimate recovery in the way of a reward. If however, the government decides not to intervene, for whatever, they decide " For whatever reason, we don't think there's enough evidence, we don't like the case, we don't have the resources, whatever it may be, the Department of Justice can make that decision, to not intervene, at that point, then the complaint becomes unsealed, and then the whistleblower and their lawyer can make the decision on whether or not to proceed by themselves, without the assistance of the Department of Justice, to prosecute the claim.On either one of those scenarios, it's really a partnership between the Department of Justice and the whistleblower to prosecute this claim on behalf of United States.