Commercial Litigation Update

[This material was presented as part of Epstein Becker Green’s Counsel to Counsel Roundtable on Monday, May 4, 2026. Co-presenters were Professor Kathleen M. Boozang and Professor David W. Opderbeck of Seton Hall School of Law.]

In 2026, several federal cases are poised to shape regulatory risk, reimbursement, and False Claims Act exposure, as well as innovation pathways across the health care and life sciences sectors. These include cases decided in 2024 and 2025 that continue to have ongoing impacts, as well as more recent cases involving cutting-edge technology. This article highlights five cases to monitor (or their progeny), why these cases matter to in-house legal teams, and practical steps for health care and life sciences general counsel (GC) to consider.

In its recent unpublished decision, United States ex rel. Stebbins v. Maraposa Surgical Inc., 2024 WL 4947274 (3d Cir. Dec. 3, 2024), the Third Circuit clarified that the public disclosure bar prevents whistleblower False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam actions arising from information gathered solely through publicly accessible databases.

As the Third Circuit explained, “[t]he FCA punishes the submission to the Government of fraudulent claims for payment under, for example, the Medicare and Medicaid programs.”  Id. at *1.  While the FCA encourages individuals, known as relators, to report government-related fraud by way of filing a qui tam suit, the public disclosure bar prevents a relator from bringing an FCA qui tam suit “if substantially the same allegations or transactions as alleged in the action or claim were publicly disclosed” in a “Federal report” or “from the news media” unless the relator is “an original source of the information.” 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A).  In the Third Circuit, “the public disclosure bar applies if either Z (fraud) or both X (misrepresented facts) and Y (true facts) are publicly disclosed by way of a listed source.” Stebbins, 2024 WL 4947274, at *2 (quoting U.S. ex rel. Zizic v. Q2Administrators, LLC, 728 F.3d 228, 236 (3d Cir. 2013)). 

In United States ex rel. Stebbins v. Maraposa Surgical Inc. et al., despite having no affiliation whatsoever with the defendants, the relator filed a qui tam action alleging, inter alia, that the defendants fraudulently sought reimbursement for the arteriograms performed in a physician’s office, rather than a licensed ambulatory surgery center, which the relator asserted violates Pennsylvania’s regulations.  Without deciding whether the defendants actually engaged in any wrongdoing, the Third Circuit held that the public disclosure bar prohibited the relator from proceeding with suit because the relator drew each piece of information supporting his FCA allegations from publicly disclosed databases.

Since the pandemic, COVID-19-related fraud has been a consistent target of the Department of Justice. The creation of the DOJ’s COVID-19 Enforcement Task Force in May 2021 marked the start of DOJ’s commitment to combatting COVID-19-related fraud. Since then, according to the Task Force’s 2024 Report, published in April of this year, the Task Force has charged over 3,500 defendants with federal crimes related to Covid-19 fraud, recovered more than $1.4 billion in stolen funds and reached over 400 civil settlements and judgments.

Most of these matters involved unemployment insurance (“UI”) benefits fraud, Paycheck Protection Program fraud (“PPP”), and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (“EIDL”) fraud , but other types of CARES Act fraud and health care fraud related to the COVID-19 pandemic were also charged. The quantum of fraud losses associated with these cases was reported to be over $2.1 billion.

Most recently, on August 8, 2024, the DOJ issued  a press release announcing that West Coast Dental Administrative Services LLC, operating a network of dental offices in Southern California, along with its founders and former owners, agreed to pay $6.3 million to resolve allegations that they knowingly violated the False Claims Act (“FCA”) in connection with seven improper loans that the company and its affiliated dental offices received under the PPP. Additionally, an unrelated real estate holdings company owned by one of the founders agreed to pay an additional $35,149.82 to resolve its potential liability under the FCA in connection with a separate PPP loan.