Congress is considering several amendments to the False Claims Act which would broaden whistleblower protection and qui tam provisions.  Supporters argue that these amendments will lead to better government and a closer monitoring of federal expenditures.  Others maintain that the amendments, which make federal employees relators under qui tam, are inadvisable at best and potentially detrimental to business and other concerns.

At the end of this month, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Exxon v. Baker concerning a $2.5 billion
punitive award against Exxon for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. The first question asks when, under federal admiralty law, a corporation may be punished for the actions of its agents. The Ninth Circuit affirmed liability for punitive damages under circuit precedent, following the Restatements of Torts and Agency, allowing corporate punitive damages if a misbehaving agent is “employed in a managerial capacity and acting in the scope of employment.” Exxon v. Baker presents the Supreme Court with the food-chain question for corporate  punishment: how high in the corporate hierarchy must misbehavior go before the corporation itself may be punished? Every American jurisdiction allows corporations to be punished with criminal liability and with some form of punitive damages. In both criminal law and the law of punitive damages, there is persistent division about the food-chain question. However, the fields develop with virtually no contact from one to the other, and the rules states adopt in each field have no correlation with the rules they adopt in the other....

This is the first issue following our twenty-fifth anniversary. Audio and video from the 25th National Lawyers Convention is online. In addition, we are pleased to announce that the transcripts of nearly all of the panel debates will be published in various law reviews this coming year, including The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Texas Review of Law and Policy, The William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, The New York Journal of Law and Liberty, Ave Maria Law Review, Hofstra Law Review, Regent University Law Review, The Southern New England Roundtable Symposium Law Journal, The SMU Technology Law Review, The University of Miami International and Comparative Law Review, and The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics. Publication details appear on the individual webpage for each panel in our new Multimedia Archive. Consequently, we will not be publishing the transcripts as an issue of Engage this year; our next issue will be in June.

It can be fairly said that American criminal law is based upon a moral consensus about which behaviors are considered right or wrong. This consensus is derived from our cultural and legal traditions, which inseparably hold individual autonomy and freedom in tandem with individual responsibility. As such, which behaviors are considered right or wrong flows not so much from legal precedent but from popular notions of agency, accountability, and the belief in an objective truth demarking good actions from evil ones. Yet, modern times have borne witness to such truly revolutionary advances in psychological science that many question whether these popular beliefs about agency and accountability are in fact true. The emergence of various forms of brain scanning technologies has led scientists to make startling claims. Recent studies have suggested that the brain embarks on a decision before an individual is actually aware of his choice, while others propose that neuroscientists have located an area of the brain, known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, where moral
decision-making takes place....