US ex rel. Beauchamp v. Academi Training Center

Relators filed suit under the False Claims Act (FCA), 31 U.S.C. 3729-3733, alleging that Academi knowingly submitted false claims to the United States in connection with a government contract to provide security services in Iraq and Afghanistan. The district court dismissed the complaint pursuant to the FCA's public-disclosure bar. The court concluded that the determination of when a plaintiff’s claims arise for purposes of the public-disclosure bar is governed by the date of the first pleading to particularly allege the relevant fraud and not by the timing of any subsequent pleading. The district court thus erred in holding the second-amended complaint was the relevant pleading by which to measure the public-disclosure bar. The court further concluded that the public-disclosure bar was inapplicable in this case where the article at issue on Wired.com was not a qualifying public disclosure that triggered the bar. Relators sufficiently pled the weapons qualifications scheme in their first-amended complaint that came well before the Wired.com article. Accordingly, the court vacated the portion of the district court’s order dismissing Relators’ weapons qualification claims under the public-disclosure bar and remanded for further proceedings. View "US ex rel. Beauchamp v. Academi Training Center" on Justia Law