Originally Published in Law360, New York May 17, 2012 -- While the False Claims Act generally is understood to be a “whistleblower” statute, it has been a tool of choice in recent years for opportunistic qui tam relators who lack any inside information regarding the very companies they sue. Not surprisingly, this lack of inside information has resulted in many qui tam cases being dismissed either because they merely mimic the allegations of a previously filed case or do not plead their allegations of fraud with sufficient particularity.

A very recent example of this trend is United States ex rel. Sandager v. Dell Marketing LP, C.A. No. 08-4805, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 59714 (D. Minn. April 25, 2012).[1] In that case, the relator, Bryan Sandager, filed suit against 19 information technology government contractors in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota alleging that they violated the FCA by misrepresenting the country of origin of products that were sold to the government through the GSA Advantage! website.