The False Claims Act (FCA), otherwise known as the “Lincoln Law,” can cost companies that supply goods or services to the federal government millions of dollars if they fail to provide the digital security protections they promise, as two recent cases illustrate. In one of the cases, Cisco Systems was forced to pay millions of dollars to the federal and state governments.
First passed in 1863 during the Lincoln Administration, the FCA was aimed at fraudulent contractors who sold bad horses, provisions and munitions to the Union Army. One of the law’s provisions allows for citizen “relators” or whistleblowers to be paid a percentage of what can be recovered from those who are proved to have made false claims to the federal government in the sale of goods or services.
