| Description |
Qui tam, or standing in the shoes of the king, is an old occupation but never before has it been so profitable. A qui tam suit is one brought by a person who prosecutes a suit for the king as well as for himself.'
Federal qui tam suits are brought under the False Claims Act (FCA), 2 which provides penalties for one who knowingly presents a false claim to the government, and also offers incentives to whistleblowers who expose the false claims. In the ten years since the passage of the 1986 Amendments to the FCA, both the number of cases and the size of the awards have skyrocketed. Even the Internet responds with thousands of hits when search words such as qui tam and whistleblower are entered. The reason for the increasing interest in qui tam litigation becomes obvious with a quick calculation. Using the penalty of $10,000 for each fraudulent act, one determines that 100 proven transgressions yields a penalty of $1,000,000. In addition, treble damages are awarded except under certain conditions, stated in the statute, in which cooperation by the defendant reduces the penalties to only double the damages as well as reasonable costs and attorney fees. (Description from Source) |