The False Claims Act Enforcement of the Regulatory State: Time for A Change?

Published: May 5, 2017, 8:50 p.m.

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Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group Podcast

Since the Supreme Court\\u2019s June 2016 decision in\\xa0Universal Health Services, Inc., v. United States ex rel Escobar,\\xa0136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016), there has been much discussion about whether the Court\\u2019s reformulation of the standards applicable to implied false certification benefits relators or defendants. However, the use of implied certification by relators and the DOJ to impose on defendants their interpretation of a regulation or term of a contract or grant has received much less attention.

Increasingly, relators and the DOJ have been using the FCA to pursue civil fraud claims not based on factual misrepresentations, but rather on the relator\\u2019s or the Government\\u2019s view of what the “correct\\u201d interpretation of a regulation or a contract or grant term should be. It is not unusual for that interpretation to be different than the interpretation advanced in the promulgation of the regulation or different than the approach practiced by the promulgating agency.\\xa0As the DOJ speaks officially for the sovereign United States, the DOJ (and relators suing on behalf of the United States) reserves the right to make interpretative disagreements into claims of fraud.

This teleforum will explore implied certification where the dispute involves issues of regulatory or contractual interpretation and whether such a matter is really an administrative law dispute or fraud.\\xa0 \\xa0

Featuring:

  • Marcia G. Madsen, Partner, Mayer Brown LLP\\xa0
  • Brian D. Miller, Shareholder, Rogers Joseph O\\u2019Donnell
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