Robert Salcido Weighs in on Impact of Escobar Ruling Two Years On

Akin Gump health partner Robert Salcido was quoted by Law360 in the article “Attys Reflect On Escobar’s FCA Impact 2 Years Later,” which reports on the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Universal Health Services v. Escobar, a case pertaining to liability in False Claims Act cases.

Salcido said he thinks the impact of the ruling “is best measured in dollars — billions of dollars.” The Court’s rationale, he noted, in which the justices ruled that health care providers, as government contractors, must make certain representations of fact when submitting claims for government program reimbursement, stems from past decisions “where courts collectively reversed more than $1 billion in FCA judgments and entered judgments, in full, for defendants.

As a result of the Escobar decision, Salcido said, “the FCA will no longer serve as merely an indirect business tax on companies that do business with the government.” He pointed out the law “will instead only appropriately apply in the narrow circumstance when an alleged misrepresentation actually impacts federal payment.”