Phillips & Cohen co-founder John Phillips spoke with the The Wall Street Journal in a Q&A about the success and future of the False Claims Act and its “qui tam” whistleblower provisions. Mr. Phillips played a key role in reviving the Civil War-era law in the 1980s, turning it into the powerful fraud-fighting tool it has become today.
“One of the clearest demonstrations of the effectiveness and success of the False Claims Act is that companies have, without question, changed. They’ve changed their approach out of necessity. People were, for example in the health-care industry, going around offering services to hospitals, to doctors’ groups, on how you can augment income from Medicare, which is a way of saying how you can charge the government more money, which ultimately frequently results in schemes to overcharge. Now consultants are coming back and saying here’s how we can work with you on government compliance programs to make sure you don’t run afoul of the law.”