In a new article for The Anti-Fraud Coalition, Lieff Cabraser partner Nimish R. Desai examines the enduring importance of the False Claims Act in combating fraud in defense contracting during times of war. Titled “The FCA in Wartime,” the piece traces the law’s origins to the Civil War, when corrupt contractors sold Union soldiers spoiled food, defective supplies, and unusable equipment.
Nimish explains how wartime spending has historically created conditions ripe for fraud and how whistleblowers remain central to exposing misconduct involving government contracts. The article highlights major False Claims Act recoveries involving military and reconstruction contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, including cases against Boeing, KBR, DynCorp, and other defense contractors. As global conflict drives rapid government spending today, the piece underscores the continued importance of whistleblowers in protecting taxpayer funds and holding contractors accountable.
To read the full article, visit The Anti-Fraud Coalition’s website.
About Nimish R. Desai
A partner in Lieff Cabraser’s San Francisco office, Nimish R. Desai specializes in False Claims Act, class action, and environmental torts, and has helped secure over a billion dollar in settlements through his cases. He has been recognized as a Super Lawyer each year from 2013-2025 and has been repeatedly named to The Best Lawyers in America list in the field of Qui Tam Law.
Nimish currently serves as Chair of the Education Committee for The Anti-Fraud Coalition, the preeminent national whistleblower law organization, and regularly presents to national conferences on FCA topics. In his False Claims Act practice, he has represented whistleblower clients in the healthcare, military contracting, mortgage, and securities industries. In addition to managing numerous under seal matters, Nimish has litigated and won notable cases, including obtaining a $71 million settlement in a case alleging that a health plan and prominent hospitals defrauded the California and the United States of Medicaid funds by allegedly misrepresenting the plans’ medical loss ratio (MLR), and winning a $46 million false billing case settlement from one of California’s largest hospital systems.
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