No, we should not pay federal employees or contractors a percentage of any amounts they help recover. Doing so may introduce a conflict of interest in that federal employees would be incentivized to pursue potentially high-yield fraud cases above other cases not expected to recover as much. In contrast, a salaried compensation arrangement incentivizes good performance, regardless of potential recovery. In a situation where high-yield cases are favored, potentially lower-yield cases may receive less attention and fewer resources. The message, then, of that arrangement is that smaller-scale fraud is less important and fraud enforcement is less likely to occur. The entire purpose of recovery, deterrence, would be undermined.

The enforcement functions best suited to a commission or bounty style payment system are those that are not already associated with an incentive. The government has an incentive to enforce anti-fraud statutes because it has an interest in maintaining the rule of law and it collects any recoveries. Enforcement functions that rely on a party other than the government to enforce the law do not carry those incentives. For that reason, they are well suited to a commission or bounty style payment system. Potential payment is a powerful financial incentive to entice non-governmental parties to participate in fraud enforcement.

AGREE OR DISAGREE? BRIEF RESPONSE