[6] The Maintenance and Embracery Act 1540 of Henry VIII provided that common informers could sue for certain forms of interference with the course of justice in legal proceedings that were concerned with the title to land.

[10] Importantly, a reward was offered in what is called the qui tam provision, which permits citizens to sue on behalf of the government and be paid a percentage of the recovery.

Senator Jacob M. Howard, who sponsored the legislation, justified giving rewards to whistle blowers, many of whom had engaged in unethical activities themselves.

"[15] In the massive military spending leading up to and during World War II, the US Attorney General relied on criminal provisions of the law to deal with fraud, rather than using the FCA.

By the late 1990s, health care fraud began to receive more focus, accounting for approximately 40% of recoveries by 2008[16]: 1271  Franklin v. Parke-Davis, filed in 1996, was the first case to apply the FCA to fraud committed by a pharma company against the government, due to bills submitted for payment by Medicaid/Medicare for treatments that those programs do not pay for as they are not FDA-approved or otherwise listed on a government formulary.

[22] The Act establishes liability when any person or entity improperly receives from or avoids payment to the Federal government.

[33] This provision specifically provides relators with a personal claim of double damages for harm suffered and reinstatement.

[20]: 219  The relator's share is determined based on the FCA itself, legislative history, Department of Justice guidelines released in 1997, and court decisions.

FERA enacted the following changes: With this revision, the FCA now prohibits knowingly (changes are in bold): On March 23, 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also referred to as the health reform bill or PPACA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama.

Eisenstein v. City of New York,[42] the United States Supreme Court considered whether, when the government declines to intervene or otherwise actively participate in a qui tam action under the False Claims Act, the United States is a "party" to the suit for purposes of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(A) (which requires that a notice of appeal in a federal civil action generally be filed within 30 days after entry of a judgment or order from which the appeal is taken).

The Court held that when the United States has declined to intervene in a privately initiated FCA action, it is not a "party" for FRAP 4 purposes, and therefore, petitioner's appeal filed after 30 days was untimely.

Proctor v. Safeway, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court opinion rejected an attempt to dilute the FCA's "knowledge standard.

"[44] Under the knowledge standard, a defendant is liable under the FCA if a false claim is "knowingly" submitted to the government for payment.

[45] The unanimous opinion found that a defendant is liable if it submits a false claim to the government based on its own knowledge and subjective beliefs — not what an objectively reasonable person may have thought.

[46] The unanimous opinion found that liability hinges on a defendant's “knowledge and subjective beliefs” — not what an objective, reasonable person would have thought — at the time they submitted their claims to the government.

[51] The Texas law enacts state qui tam provisions that allow individuals to report fraud and initiate action against violations of the TMFPA, imposes consequences for noncompliance and includes whistleblower protections.

There have been calls since 2011 for legislation modeled on the False Claims Act and for their application to the tobacco industry and carbon pricing schemes.

[66] In 2009, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Government Accountability Project (GAP) and OMB Watch filed suit against the Department of Justice challenging the constitutionality of the "seal provisions" of the FCA that require the whistleblower and the court to keep lawsuits confidential for at least 60 days.

The plaintiffs argued that the requirements infringe the First Amendment rights of the public and the whistleblower, and that they violate the separation of powers, since courts are not free to release the documents until the executive branch acts.

[70] Clarissa Zafirov filed a lawsuit under the FCA in May 2019, alleging her employer and other defendants committed Medicare fraud by misrepresenting patients' conditions to the federal government.

The settlement, approved by the UW Board of Regents, resolved claims that they systematically overbilled Medicaid and Medicare and that employees destroyed documents to hide the practice.

The fraud settlement, the largest against a teaching hospital since the University of Pennsylvania agreed to pay $30 million in 1995, ended a five-year investigation that resulted in guilty pleas from two prominent doctors.

[75] The suit alleged that Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (OMJPI) acted improperly concerning the marketing, promotion and sale of the anti-convulsant drug Topamax.

[75] In response to a complaint from whistleblower Jerry H. Brown II, the US Government filed suit against Maersk for overcharging for shipments to US forces fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a settlement announced on 3 January 2012, the company agreed to pay $31.9 million in fines and interest, but made no admission of wrongdoing.

[76][77] The largest healthcare fraud settlement in history was made by GlaxoSmithKline in 2012 when it paid a total of $3 billion to resolve four qui tam lawsuits brought under the False Claims Act and related criminal charges.

[79] In 2014, CareFusion paid $40.1 million to settle allegations of violating the False Claims Act by promoting off label use of its products in the case United States ex rel.

In 2017, this case was called into question and was under review by the DOJ because the lead attorney for the DOJ serving as Assistant Attorney General in the case, Jeffery Wertkin, was arrested by the FBI on January 31, 2017, for allegedly attempting to sell a copy of a complaint in a secret whistleblower suit that was under seal.

[81][82] In 2017, bio-pharmaceutical giant Celgene Corporation paid $240 million to settle allegations it sold and marketed its drugs Thalomid and Revlimid off-label in U.S. ex rel.

[83] In 2021, A South Carolina pain management company was ordered to pay $140 million under the False Claims Act after a judge in U.S. district court found it in default after fraud schemes.