“The simplest explanation is usually the best one,” false claims defense attorneys would love to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court in response to two recent petitions.
If the government knew about a contractor’s possible fraud, but continued to pay it anyway, then the alleged fraud must have not been too important to the government, and therefore a False Claims Act case must fail for lack of materiality, defendants have argued.
But the Supreme Court has already said there’s no such silver-bullet defense, and lower courts should view continued payments as one of several materiality factors to consider, whistle-blowers have ...