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.
Insights
Client Alert | 4 min read | 11.10.26
D.C. District Court Upholds CMS’s 2020 Organ Procurement Rule
It’s been about a month since the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida upheld the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s (CMS) final rule governing organ procurement organizations (OPM). (See our previous Client Alert here.) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia followed suit. In contrast to the Florida decision, the D.C. decision was brief and to the point. The rule establishes a competitive model for classifying OPOs under the following three tiers.
Client Alert | 8 min read | 11.10.26
EU Simplifies Rules on Defense Procurement and Transfers of Defense-Related Products
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.09.26
Client Alert | 4 min read | 11.09.26
