The receipt of federal and state government monies brings with heightened scrutiny by government auditors, investigators, and prosecutors regarding the manner in which those funds are invoiced and used. The proliferation of whistleblower provisions in numerous statutes also has created significant financial incentives for disgruntled employees to raise allegations of fraud and abuse and has spawned a group of qui tam attorneys who focus on filing false claims cases.

Arent Fox has assembled a formidable team of former federal and state prosecutors, civil litigators, regulatory attorneys, and attorneys highly experienced  in the substantive areas in which  federal and state false claims act cases often arise. Our team is highly skilled at navigating and litigating both the federal False Claims Act (FCA) and state false claims acts, including the qui tam or whistleblower provisions contained in those statutes. We handle all phases of FCA litigation, including pre-litigation efforts aimed at influencing the government’s intervention decision, motions practice to dismiss non-intervened whistleblower actions, and, when necessary, FCA discovery and trial work. We are among a select group of law firms that have significant experience in handling parallel civil and criminal false claims act cases, and we have litigated cases prosecuted by the US Department of Justice, US Attorney’s Offices nationwide, state and local prosecutors, and whistleblowers.

Our experience includes representing large, publicly traded corporations, defense and IT contractors, hospitals, hospices, medical device companies, academic medical centers, and a broad range of other health care providers and suppliers, as well as individual clinical researchers and health care practitioners who have faced false claims allegations. In the health care arena, we have experience defending allegations of:

• Billing and coding fraud
• Failure to comply with conditions of Medicare or Medicaid payments
• Anti-Kickback Act violations
• Physician self-referral (Stark Law) violations
• False certification of medical necessity
• Clinical research fraud
• Whistleblower retaliation

In the area of government contracts, we have handled false claims act allegations relating to:

• Procurement fraud
• Defective pricing and parts
• False inspections
• Bid-rigging and antitrust allegations
• Kickbacks, gratuities, and conflicts of interest
• Cost accounting and mischarging
• Product quality and product substitution
• Non-compliance with contractual conditions of payment
• Export control violations

Our practice includes counseling and advising clients in the development and implementation of strategies to minimize FCA exposure. Arent Fox attorneys work proactively with clients to develop training, compliance, and ethics programs tailored to the unique regulatory environment in which the client operates. We audit and evaluate existing compliance programs to identify and correct potential weak points, and we guide clients through government program audits to ensure that the regulations are properly interpreted and applied, and to preempt unnecessary disputes and litigation. We also work with our colleagues who focus on employment law to help clients address the disruptive effect of whistleblowers within their organizations without running afoul of the anti-retaliation provisions of the FCA and similar laws. When necessary, we assist our clients with voluntary disclosures, settlement negotiations, and negotiations surrounding the implementation of corporate integrity agreements or corporate monitoring programs. Our attorneys understand the collateral consequences which can result from FCA litigation, and we help clients avoid or defend against exclusion, suspension or debarment proceedings.