Whistleblower Protection Blog : Whistleblower Lawyer & Attorney : National Whistleblower Legal Defense and Education Fund : Whistleblower Protection, Fraud Claims : Washington DC

I attended the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this morning on the False Claims Act Correction Act of 2007.  Senators Leahy, Specter, Grassley and Durbin all attended intermittently, with Senator Grassley being the only member to attend the entire hearing. The witnesses were :

•    Michael Herz, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General representing  the Justice Department ;
•    Tina Gonter, a Qui Tam whistleblower;
•    John Clark, a former federal judge, now a Qui Tam attorney;
•    John Boese, a corporate attorney, representing the views of the U.S.  Chamber of Commerce.

Although each of the panelists had a distinctly different viewpoint on the False Claims Act, they did agree on one thing: that the FCA – having rooted out $20 billion in fraud since 1986, including $5 billion since 2005 -- is a highly effective fraud-fighting tool and it should be kept that way.  But what should be done to upgrade the law, if anything?

Mr. Herz and the Department of Justice expressed agreement with some of the reforms in S.2041 (such as increasing the statute of limitations to ten years), ...
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The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has scheduled a hearing this Wednesday on the False Claims Correction Act of 2007, S.2041 (discussed previously here). More details to follow...

UPDATE: Stephen M. Kohn, President of the National Whistleblower Center, has submitted written testimony to the committee to be entered into the record at tomorrow's hearing. View the testimony here.

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On January 25, 2008, The DOJ issued it's responses to questions posed to former AG Gonzales by the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 24, 2007. Several of these questions dealt with how the DOJ  handles False Claims Act investigations (those questions are found on pages 51-58 of the DOJ letter)

Among the interesting revelations contained in these responses is that the DOJ is currently investigating approximately 1,000 separate False Claims Act allegations, with the following approximate breakdown by issue:

• Health Care: 630
• Pharmacuetical: 150
• Defense Procurement: 135 (30 of which are related to the Iraq War)
  
• Other Procurement: 95

The responses also cover issues such as the average amount of time it takes DOJ to intervene in a case, and how erosive judicial decisions (such as Sanders and Rockwell) have hampered the ability of the DOJ to pursue FCA cases.

View the full responses here

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