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The Marriage Of The False Claims Act And The Freedom Of Information Act: Parasitic Potential Or Positive Synergy?, James R. Moncus, Iii

Vanderbilt Law Review

The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act ("FCA" or "the Act") allow private citizens to prosecute fraud on the government's behalf. There are at least three primary justifications for such provisions: (1) the need to provide private incentives to expose fraudulent conduct, (2) the Justice Department's unwillingness to aggressively prosecute fraud, and (3) the limited enforcement resources available to the federal government. The FCA contains a jurisdictional bar that provides that no court shall have jurisdiction over a qui tam FCA action if the information on which the action is based has been publicly disclosed. Ostensibly, this jurisdictional …