The False Claims Act was originally adopted to combat fraud on what is now the Department of Defense and was started to help whistleblowers report fraud. In terms of fraud in this sector, little has changed since the Civil War. Defense contractors, including some of our nation’s largest corporations, are routinely investigated and sanctioned for fraud on government defense spending programs. The False Claims Act remains a potent weapon in the fight against defense contractor fraud.
Fraud on our nation’s defense programs is unconscionable and often criminal in nature, and is often only brought to light through the brave acts of whistleblowers. Billions of dollars in defense contractor fraud have been returned to the government as a result of these whistleblowers.
Such fraud runs the gamut. Among the more common types of defense contractor fraud are:
- Bid rigging or other forms of collusion on government defense contract bidding.
- Falsifying invoices and overcharging the government for services under contract.
- Use of inferior and often unsafe, or worthless products in the manufacture of equipment, supplies, even the provision of food and shelter for our military in violation of defense contract requirements.
- Unlawful shifting of costs away from “fixed-price” contracts to “cost-plus” and other more lucrative and deceptive contracts.
- Failure to provide “best price” to the government and violation of “TINA” requirements binding particularly on single-source military suppliers.
Hagens Berman represents whistleblowers under the False Claims Act with information on defense contractor fraud and has litigated against some of the largest suppliers to the government.
