Amendments to FCA.

• Author: Williams, J. Andrew
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

The article, "The Impact of Federal, State, and Local False Claims Acts on the Construction Industry" (September/October) did not mention the two most recent amendments to the federal False Claims Act (FCA) in March and July 2010.

The March amendments, found in the major healthcare legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama, significantly revised what is known as the public disclosure bar to qui tam private litigant lawsuits. This bar prohibits a qui tam suit if it is based upon prior "public disclosure" of information from certain statutorily defined sources.

Changes to the law include, among others: 1) public disclosure sources foreclosing qui tam suits will no longer include state and local criminal, civil, or administrative hearings, or state and local "reports, hearings, audits, or investigations"; 2) the requirement of "direct and independent knowledge of the information" on which allegations are based to satisfy the "original source" exception to the public disclosure bar has been eliminated; 3) even in the event of prior public disclosure, as long as a qui tam plaintiff "has knowledge that is independent of and materially adds to the publicly disclosed allegations or transactions," he or she may maintain a qui tam suit; and 4) whereas under the prior law, the FCA denied jurisdiction in the first place to a court when an...