February 23, 2022. On the first day of the Federal Bar Association’s annual Qui Tam Conference, Partner Renée Brooker moderated a panel called, “The False Claims Act as a Weapon Against Cybersecurity Fraud.” Panelists discussed the Department of Justice’s launch of the Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative last October. Panelist Colleen Kennedy, deputy chief in the Civil Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California, characterized the initiative as the DOJ attempting “to conduct outreach and training to encourage folks like the relators’ counsel […] to bring us good cases that DOJ can pursue.” She stated, “the initiative is not imposing anything new on industry; it’s simply trying to improve our ability to bring these cases that are there.”
Regarding the DOJ Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative, Ms. Brooker commented, “There have certainly been other DOJ initiatives, but I’ve never seen DOJ put out a missive on its website basically looking for whistleblowers.”