The 10th Anniversary of the False Claims Act Guide 2026 – Year in review and looking ahead comes at a pivotal moment for False Claims Act (FCA) enforcement. The past year brought significant enforcement momentum alongside growing judicial uncertainty – creating a more complex and less predictable risk environment for companies in highly regulated industries.
In this year's Guide, we reflect on a year of shifting enforcement priorities and discuss how the current Administration is harnessing the power of the FCA to target Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); gender-affirming care; cyberfraud; and trade. State attorneys general are also playing a greater role in enforcing state FCAs in both novel and more traditional ways.
Preview this year's articles below and read the full Guide here.
Executive summary
2026 brings enforcement momentum and judicial uncertainty. With the Department of Justice (DOJ) pushing into novel enforcement areas and courts wrestling with core legal doctrines, the FCA stands at a defining inflection point.
“The FCA today bears little resemblance to the law President Lincoln signed 154 years ago to stop con artists from selling the U.S. Army gun powder barrels filled with sawdust,” we opined in the opening paragraph of False Claims Act: A Year in Review 2016 – the first edition of this Guide. Ten years later, the divide between Lincoln's Law and the modern FCA has grown even more pronounced. Read more…
A new approach: Targeting “illegal-DEI” with the FCA
In early 2025, the incoming Trump Administration signaled a dramatic change in the federal government's approach to DEI programs, with new executive orders, a DOJ memoranda, and enforcement priorities that place DEI initiatives under unprecedented scrutiny. These developments have profound implications for federal contractors, grantees, and recipients of federal financial assistance. At the center of this transformation is Executive Order 14173, which details steps the federal government intends to take to end “illegal DEI” policies of private-sector companies, including through use of the FCA. Other organizations – including, most notably, universities – also face intense scrutiny and enforcement risk. This article explains the government's evolving scrutiny of DEI, the use of the FCA as an enforcement mechanism, and the types of DEI programs that are most likely to draw government attention. Read more…
The Trump Administration's FCA enforcement priorities
The first year of the second Trump Administration has brought with it a series of pronouncements about the Administration's policy objectives and enforcement priorities. And this time around, the two have merged. The FCA in particular has emerged as a preferred legal avenue for inducing government contractors and other recipients of federal funds to alter their practices. Directives from the White House and the DOJ over the first half of 2025 focused heavily on new priorities, leaving businesses to strategize about how to respond. Since then, the DOJ has also announced its continued commitment to combatting fraud, waste, and abuse in the health care sector by establishing a joint FCA Working Group with the Department of Health and Human Services and identifying gender-affirming care as a policy and enforcement target. Taken together, the government has signaled an expansive approach to FCA enforcement as the second year of the Administration begins. Read more…
Tariff enforcement meets the FCA: Liability under the Trump Administration's tariff regime
Tariffs are a core element of the second Trump Administration's economic policy, and the Administration has made clear that it views the FCA as an important tool to advance that policy, using it to target trade fraud, circumvention, and evasion. On August 29, 2025, the DOJ announced the creation of a multi-agency Trade Fraud Task Force (Task Force), designed to “aggressively pursue enforcement actions against any parties who seek to evade tariffs and other duties.” The Task Force signals a significant escalation in the Administration's efforts to increase trade-related enforcement under the FCA, in furtherance of the Administration's “America First Trade Policy.” The initiative also builds on other efforts by the Administration to target trade fraud, and it portends an increase in both civil and criminal enforcement investigations and actions. Businesses engaged in cross-border trade would be wise to reevaluate existing tariff compliance schemes to avoid costly FCA enforcement actions. Read more…
Business as usual: The DOJ's Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative continues under the new Administration
Since its launch in 2021, the DOJ's Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative has worked to use the FCA to enforce cybersecurity requirements in federal contracts (even when contracting agencies themselves do not). Although many of the DOJ's enforcement priorities shifted this year under the new Administration, cybersecurity enforcement continued apace. In 2025, the DOJ reached seven settlements with government contractors and grantees across industries including defense, information technology, higher education, and health care. As technology rapidly evolves and cyber threats intensify, the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative will remain an important tool for the government to motivate compliance with its contractual cybersecurity obligations and protect against cyberattacks and data breaches that could compromise national security and other government interests. Read more…
Anti-Kickback Statute liability revisited
Since Congress amended the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) in 2010 to articulate a specific nexus between kickbacks and false claims, courts have grappled with the appropriate causation standard required to substantiate those claims. In 2018, the Third Circuit held that the government need only show a “causal connection” between the unlawful kickback and the submission of the reimbursement claim. But the Sixth, Eighth, and, most recently, the First Circuits have adopted a more exacting causation standard, requiring a showing of “but-for” causation. Under this heightened standard, the government (or a qui tam relator) must prove that a claim would not have been submitted but-for the alleged kickback. Read more…
State of play: State AGs ramp up FCA enforcement
Recent state enforcement actions send a clear message: pursuing cases under the FCA is no longer just the federal government's game, as state attorneys general have assertively wielded their authority under state versions of the FCA this year to target Medicaid fraud. While the state investigators continue to travel the well-worn path of collaboration with their federal counterparts, state attorneys general are also spearheading investigations, showing a willingness to act on their own, particularly in targeting for-profit health care companies promising – but failing to deliver – improved patient health outcomes. Read more…
The developing circuit split over objective falsity following SuperValu
A key element of every FCA suit is falsity – did the defendant, in fact, include a false statement on a claim submitted to the government, or knowingly make a record or statement material to a false claim? If nothing about the claim is “false,” this key element of FCA liability has not been met, and the case must be dismissed. What it means for a claim to be “false” has divided courts following the Supreme Court's decision in SuperValu. Following SuperValu, several courts have continued to hold that a claim must be objectively false to meet the “falsity” element of the FCA. This makes sense because the meaning of the word “false” is not equivalent to “untrue,” and should not encompass statements that are objectively reasonable but may ultimately be proven wrong. A few courts have nevertheless refused to apply an objective falsity standard when evaluating an FCA claim. A circuit split is brewing, and it is likely that the Supreme Court will have to step in to resolve this issue. Read more…
Looking ahead
2025 was a norm-breaking year for the FCA. While the Trump Administration made headlines with its new FCA enforcement priorities, FCA recoveries soared to $6.8 billion – the highest total annual recovery on record. Most of these recoveries are attributable to health care, a core FCA enforcement priority. Approximately 84 percent of recoveries – $5.7 billion of the $6.8 billion collected – came from settlements and judgements in cases involving federal health care program dollars. While the ratio of recoveries among federal programs is comparable to previous years, the total amount of recoveries is a notable increase over prior years – driven, in part, by significant jury verdicts relators secured in non-intervened qui tams, which we discuss further below. Read more…
As we said in our first edition of the Guide, “With every new administration, we face uncertainty,” and that was perhaps never truer than it was in 2025. But as the dust settles on the first year of President Trump's second term, we begin to see a picture of what FCA enforcement will look like going forward – and can prepare accordingly. The Hogan Lovells FCA team stands ready to help companies understand the FCA landscape and navigate the road ahead. Read the full Guide here...
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