District court dismisses FCA claims against student loan collectors

Courts False Claims Act / FIRREA Student Lending Whistleblower Department of Education Debt Collection

On February 11, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a relator’s False Claims Act claims, which alleged that a group of prime private student loan debt collectors (defendants) defrauded the federal government of funds intended for small businesses in relation to contracts to service student loans with the Department of Education (Department). The 2015 lawsuit filed by the relator accused the defendants of, among other things, allegedly concealing that “the purportedly small business subcontractors were affiliated with ‘co-conspirator’ larger businesses, ‘making them ineligible to be claimed as small businesses by the prime contractors on the [Department’s private collection agency] task orders.’” The relator also claimed that the defendants convinced the Department to award contracts and provide bonuses they did not deserve. According to the relator, the defendants made claims that hinged “on the factual allegation of undisclosed affiliation and associated submission of false claims and/or misrepresentations concerning business size.”

In the order, the court determined, among other things, that the relator fell short of alleging the specific facts necessary to convince the court that the defendants engaged in fraudulent inducement and implied certification. The court held that “despite [the relator’s] contrary contentions, [the relator’s] pleading does not establish with the requisite particularity the time and place of the false misrepresentations, what constitutes the allegedly false claim for each discrete defendant, and what, precisely, ‘was retained or given up as a consequence of the fraud.’” Specifically, the court stated that the relator “fail[ed] to connect several critical dots in the alleged scheme, leaving the [c]ourt unclear as to what, precisely, was allegedly actionably false and/or fraudulent.” However, the court allowed the relator leave to file an amended complaint, stating that “because the allegation of further facts might cure the identified deficiencies (although the [c]ourt has its doubts, given the length of the investigation and [the relator’s] counsel’s central role in the investigation), the [c]ourt sees no reason to deviate from the general rule [allowing leave].”