False Claims Act - State False Claims Acts and Application in Other Jurisdictions

State False Claims Acts and Application in Other Jurisdictions

Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have also created false-claims statutes to protect their publicly funded programs from fraud by including qui tam provisions, which enables them to recover money at state level. Twenty of these state False Claims Act statutes provide similar protections to those of the federal law, while ten states have laws which limit recovery to claims of fraud related to the Medicaid program.

The California False Claims Act was enacted in 1987, but lay relatively dormant until the early 1990s, when public entities, frustrated by what they viewed as a barrage of unjustified and unmeritorious claims, began to employ the False Claims Act as a defensive measure. Recent developments in the California False Claims Act reduce the defenses contractors have to false claim prosecutions, by stripping away immunities that were believed to apply to certain classes of statements and claims. As a result, contractors can expect to see their payment claims answered by false claims accusations with increasing frequency.

It has recently been argued that legislation modeled on the False Claims Act should be introduced in Australia and apply to the tobacco industry and carbon pricing schemes