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Substantial Penalties Under the FCA Without Real Damages Violates Eighth Amendment

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.23.12

Using reasoning that could prove useful to other FCA defendants, the court in U.S. ex rel. Bunk v. Birkart Globistics GmbH & Co. (E.D. Va. Feb. 14, 2012),  after the jury found over 9,000 false claims based on invoices submitted, refused to award statutory penalties of between $50.2 and $100.4 million.  The court held that, when the qui tam relator failed to show that the government suffered any damage, imposing penalties of this magnitude would have violated the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause and, because it lacked discretion under the FCA to  fashion a civil penalty that would be within Constitutional limits, no penalties could be imposed.

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Client Alert | 6 min read | 07.09.26

EU Steel Overcapacity Regulation: New Permanent Measure in Force from 1 July 2026

The EU’s steel safeguard under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159 expired on 30 June 2026 and has been replaced by a new permanent instrument — the EU Steel Overcapacity Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2026/1384) (the Regulation”). It imposes tariff-rate quotas and an out-of-quota duty, similarly to the steel safeguard measures that expired. The out-of-quota duty has been raised from 25% to 50% to minimize the risk of trade diversion. The Regulation reduces duty-free imports of 26 categories of steel products into the EU by an average of 47% compared with the quotas under the until recently applicable safeguard measures....

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