Full opinion text
Memorandum and Order YOHN, District Judge. I. Factual Background and Procedural History This is a qui tcm action brought by Paul E. Atkinson (“Atkinson,” “plaintiff’ or “relator”) pursuant to the False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. § 3729. The case, originally filed on December 5, 1994, requires the court to engage in a lengthy, complicated legal analysis of various issues related to the interpretation of the FCA, federal pleading and jurisdictional standards, and the occasionally uneasy interaction among them. Moreover, it features an extensive factual background and procedural history, both of which are delineated at length in the court’s Aug. 24, 2000 memorandum in this matter. See Atkinson v. Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co., 2000 WL 1207162, at *1-6 (E.D.Pa. Aug.24, 2000). Accordingly, I will not reiterate that discussion here. Before addressing the motions presently at bar, however, I will briefly summarize the basis for the present dispute, the import of the August, 2000 Atkinson holding, and the developments in the case since the issuance of that opinion. A. Factual Background This lawsuit stems from a pattern of fraud allegedly perpetrated by defendants Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. (“Penn Ship”) and First Fidelity Bank, N.A. (“Fidelity”) on the United States Navy (“Navy”) in connection with the construction of several Henry J. Kaiser class fleet Oiler ships (“Oilers”). Third Amended Complaint (“Complaint”) ¶ 13. As occurs in the context of most government contracts, bids were solicited by the Navy for the construction of the Oilers. Id. ¶ 38. Although Penn Ship desired the Oiler contract, Atkinson asserts, it was financially weak, a condition that was exacerbated by the use of a significant portion of its assets to “prop up” Levingston Shipbuilding Company (“Levingston”), a company that, like Penn Ship, was under the control of Edward E. Paden. Id. ¶ 39. This weakness, if revealed, would have prevented Penn Ship from obtaining the contract, as it bore directly on the ability of the Paden companies generally, and Penn Ship specifically, to perform the Oiler contract, and thus on the likelihood of a default. Id. ¶ 48. Accordingly, plaintiff continues, Penn Ship undertook a ten year, multifaceted pattern of fraudulent misrepresentations and asset transfers, the purpose of which was to “deceived the Navy into concluding that Penn Ship’s financial condition was better than it in fact was, and, in particular, [to] conceal[ ] from the Navy the extent of Levingston’s financial weakness and the consequences of that weakness to Penn Ship.” Id. ¶ 39. Atkinson avers that this pattern of deception commenced prior to Penn Ship’s submission of its Oiler contract bid. Id. ¶ 42. Specifically, he contends that Penn Ship’s financial statement for fiscal 1984, dated September 30, 1984, omitted the required loss contingency relating to the impairment of its Levingston receivable. Id. 1ffl43-44A. He asserts that Penn Ship’s December 31, 1984 interim financial statement similarly lacked such a loss contingency, and that this statement also failed to disclose Penn Ship’s guaranties of Lev-ingston’s worker’s compensation insurance obligations. Id. ¶ 49. After the close of the bidding period, it was revealed that Penn Ship had submitted the lowest bid, a result that Atkinson alleges was made possible by Penn Ship’s knowing, fraudulent disregard of the cost of architectural drawings and the attendant delay that the creation of these schematics would impose before construction of the ships could begin. Id. ¶ 57. Before the Oiler contract was awarded to Penn Ship, however, the Navy requested that Penn Ship secure it against the reprocurement costs it would incur in the event of a Penn Ship default. Id. ¶ 61. Penn Ship provided the desired security interest to the Navy in the form of a Trust Indenture, with Fidelity serving as the trustee, and the trust res including security agreements and mortgages on all but seven acres of the Chester ship yard (“Chester yard”)-in which Penn Ship’s ship building operations were centered-and in some of the equipment used by Penn Ship. Id. ¶¶ 62-65. Atkinson avers that on March 15, 1985, as a means of inducing the Navy to accept the Trust Indenture-without which the Oiler contract would not have been awarded to Penn Ship-Thomas Weller, the chairman of Penn Ship, sent a letter (“the Weller letter”) to Christopher Pigott, a financial analyst of Naval Sea Systems Command and a member of the team responsible for the financial analysis of Penn Ship’s proposal. Id. ¶ 64. In this letter, plaintiff asserts, Weller intentionally made several false representations to the Navy regarding the degree of security afforded the Navy by the Trust Indenture. Id. ¶¶ 67-69. On March 26, 1985, the Navy assented to the terms of the Trust Indenture, and on May 6, 1985, it awarded the Oiler contract to Penn Ship, thereby rendering the Indenture immediately effective. Relator contends, however, that Fidelity and Penn Ship conspired to defeat the Trust Indenture. This allegedly transpired, in Penn Ship’s case, by intentionally failing to record-and thus perfect-the security instruments specified in the Indenture. Fidelity’s asserted role in the conspiracy consisted of 1) convincing the Navy not to mandate the inclusion of a provision within the Indenture that would have required the delivery by Fidelity of “copies of all recording documents to the Navy”; 2) failing to insist that the security interests be perfected; 3) not perfecting those interests itself; and 4) failing to inform the Navy that they had not been perfected. Id. ¶¶ 70-70K. As a result of these fraudulent actions, Atkinson alleges, the Navy was unaware that it was not secured against potential reprocurement costs. Plaintiff contends that based on this misunderstanding and its false impression of Penn Ship’s financial well being, both of which were fraudulently induced, the Navy exercised during February, 1986 its option to order a third, and then, during February, 1987, a fourth Oiler from Penn Ship. Id. ¶¶ 76-77. During late 1987, with the first Oiler being due for delivery in March, 1989, Penn Ship informed the United States that it was experiencing financial difficulty, a direct consequence, relator asserts, of the matters misrepresented by Penn Ship to the Navy prior to the award of the Oiler contract. Id. ¶ 78. It consequently requested permission to transfer the two option Oilers to another ship builder. Id. ¶ 79. On June 5, 1988, the Navy agreed, and signed Modification 5 (“Mod.5”) to the contract. Id. ¶ 80. Besides eliminating the two option Oilers from the contract, Mod. 5 restructured Penn Ship’s compensation arrangement, changing it from a cost reimbursement incentive price contract for $222,476,849 for the original two Oilers to a fixed price contract for $331,400,000 for the same two ships. Id. ¶ 81. Atkinson asserts that Mod. 5, and the resultant increase in the Navy’s overall costs, were a direct consequence of Penn Ship’s misrepresentations regarding its financial condition and the degree of security provided by the Trust Indenture. Id. ¶ 82. Also allegedly caused by these false representations was Modification 11 (“Mod.ll”) to the Oiler contract, which was executed on January 26, 1989, and which similarly was asserted by Penn Ship to have been necessitated by its worsening financial status. Id. ¶ 83. Pursuant to the terms of Mod. 11, a $10 million payment was advanced by the Navy to Penn Ship. As a means of securing this advance payment, Penn Ship granted the Navy a $17 million secured interest in a large floating drydoek located at the Chester yard. Id. ¶¶ 83, 86. On August 24, 1989, the United States and Penn Ship agreed to again modify the Oiler contract, and they signed Modification 17 (“Mod. 17” or the “default Mod.”). Id. ¶ 85. The default Mod. terminated the Trust Indenture and transferred the two original Oilers to another shipyard. Id. Although Atkinson avers that the default Mod. “substantially released Penn Ship from liability under the contract,” Penn Ship remained obligated to compensate the Navy for the reprocurement costs and other expenses occasioned by its default. Id. ¶ 86. As a means of securing this remaining obligation, Penn Ship agreed to an increase of $2 million in the Navy’s security interest in the floating drydock. Id. It also agreed to exert a good faith effort to sell within the ensuing thirteen months some of the land and buildings that comprised the Chester yard and the Sun 800, a massive floating derrick owned by Penn Ship, and to apply a portion of the proceeds of such a sale toward the Navy’s reprocurement costs. Id. ¶ 88. To secure its new obligation to attempt to liquidate these assets, Penn Ship conveyed to the Navy a subordinated mortgage on the land and buildings and a preferred ship mortgage on the Sun 800. Id. Plaintiff contends that these “security interests were fraudulent because Penn Ship never intended to and never tried to use its best efforts to sell [these assets] during the thirteen-month period.” Id. ¶ 89. Although Penn Ship allegedly did not attempt to sell these assets during those thirteen months, Atkinson asserts, it did cause the formation of Marine Capital Corporation (“MCC”) during this period, which purchased the Sun 800 following the expiration of the thirteen months. Id. On July 25, 1991, less than three weeks after MCC bought the derrick from Penn Ship, it sold the apparatus to Donjon Marine Co, Inc. (“Donjon”), a good faith purchaser for value. Id. ¶ 94. This sale allegedly foreclosed the Navy from proceeding “against the derrick as collateral for Penn Ship’s breached obligation to sell the land, buildings and derrick within thirteen months.... ” Id. Relator further posits that MCC fraudulently certified that the apparatus was free and clear of all hens and encumbrances when it sold the Sun 800 to Donjon, just as Penn Ship allegedly had done in connection with its sale of the derrick to MCC. Id. ¶ 95. On January 12, 1992, Penn Ship and the Navy entered into Modification 20 (“Mod.20”) to the Oiler contract, pursuant to which the Navy fuhy released Penn Ship from all responsibility and liability under the contract. B. Recent Procedural History As indicated, supra, Atkinson has brought two separate qui tam actions based on the foregoing factual allegations-this being the second-and has on three separate occasions amended his complaint in the present case. Like the factual basis for this suit, this extensive procedural history was explicated in detail in the court’s previous Atkinson memorandum. Accordingly, I will focus in this section on the procedural developments in this case since the filing of that opinion. In his second amended complaint, which was subject of the court’s prior Atkinson decision, relator advanced fourteen claims against Penn Ship, some of which also were brought against Fidelity and Sun Ship, Inc. (“Sun Ship”), a party whose absence from the third amended complaint explains the lack of reference to it in the above factual synopsis. These claims were based on numerous aspects of the pattern of dealing outlined above, and were advanced pursuant to various subsections of 31 U.S.C. § 3729. Each defendant moved pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss every count of the second amended complaint in which it was named as a defendant, asserting that the allegations of fraud contained therein were pled with insufficient particularity to satisfy Fed. R.Civ.P. 9(b). Ultimately, all of plaintiffs claims against Fidelity and Sun Ship, as well as some of his claims against Penn Ship, were dismissed on this basis. These dismissals, however, were entered without prejudice to Atkinson’s right to amend his complaint “within the confines of Rule 11.” Atkinson, 2000 WL 1207162, at *1. On October 16, 2000, Atkinson filed his third amended complaint, which' features twelve distinct claims. The factual allegations made within this pleading are substantially the same as those contained in its antecedent, although the account currently presented by relator is in places more robust, presumably in an effort to cure the deficiencies that led to the dismissal of significant portions of his second amended complaint. While Penn Ship and Fidelity remain as parties to the action, Sun Ship has been dropped as a defendant. As for plaintiffs specific claims, these also largely mirror those advanced in the second amended complaint. For example, claim 1, like its earlier counterpart, alleges a conspiracy to defraud the government, claim 2 similarly concerns Penn Ship’s September 30, 1984 financial statement, and so on. Indeed, in general terms, there are only three differences between the claims contained in relator’s second and third amended complaints. First, just as the body of the third amended complaint features more detailed factual allegations, the assertions comprising many of the claims themselves are similarly more extensive. Second, claims 7, 13 and 14 from the second amended complaint have been abandoned in Atkinson’s most recent pleading. Third, the third amended complaint contains one completely novel claim relating to the cost reimbursement invoices submitted by Penn Ship to the Navy in connection with the Oiler contract prior to its conversion into a fixed price arrangement, and the payments it received in return. As stated above, the court’s previous Atkinson holding addressed only the defendants’ motions to dismiss the second amended complaint pursuant to Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). While I noted that the defendants also had indicated their intention to move for dismissal on the ground that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Atkinson’s claims, that issue had not been fully briefed at the time of the opinion’s issuance, and accordingly was not addressed therein. See 2000 WL 1207162, at *6 n. 11. Since the filing of relator’s third amended complaint, however, defendants have moved pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) to dismiss this pleading, the parties have conducted extensive discovery on the 12(b)(1) issue, and plaintiff, Penn Ship and Fidelity each have briefed extensively the question of whether the court has jurisdiction over the subject matter of this dispute. Consequently, this issue is ripe for disposition. Also before the court are Fidelity’s motion to dismiss Atkinson’s claims against it pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), Penn Ship’s motion for partial dismissal based on the statute of limitations, and Penn Ship’s motion to dismiss relator’s first, second, sixth, tenth, eleventh and “additional” claims against it pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). After considering each of the parties’ submissions and the arguments raised therein, I conclude that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over each count of relator’s complaint with the exception of his first, which sounds in an alleged conspiracy under 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(3). Although defendants raise numerous. arguments in favor of dismissing this remaining count pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), only two of these contentions are availing, and both of them compel only the partial dismissal of plaintiffs first count. Specifically, I conclude that defendants are correct in asserting that Atkinson’s conspiracy allegation is non-justiciable insofar as it is based on reverse false claims that allegedly were made by Penn Ship, and that relator is barred by the FCA’s six year statute of limitations from basing his first count on false claims submitted by Penn Ship prior to December 4,1988. Accordingly, defendants’ motion for dismissal pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) will be granted except with respect to Atkinson’s first count insofar as it sounds in Penn Ship’s non-recording of the Navy’s security instruments and Fidelity’s failure to ensure such recordation. I also will grant defendants’ motion to dismiss relator’s first count pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) to the extent that it is based on the making by Penn Ship of reverse false claims. Similarly, Penn Ship’s motion for the partial dismissal of this count on statute of limitations grounds will be granted to the extent that it is based on claims submitted prior to December 4, 1988. The balance of defendants’ motions will be denied. II. Analysis A. Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) 1. Legal Standard In evaluating a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), the court must first determine whether it is confronted with a facial or factual challenge to its jurisdiction. Gould Elecs., Inc. v. United States, 220 F.3d 169, 176 (3d Cir.2000). In this case, the jurisdictional challenge raised by Penn Ship and Fidelity unquestionably is factual in nature, as it concerns not an alleged pleading deficiency, but rather the actual failure of relator’s claims to comport with the jurisdictional prerequisites contained in 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4). Accordingly, the court’s evaluation is not confined to the four corners of the complaint, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and any reasonable inferences that could be drawn therefrom, as it would be in the case of a facial challenge. See id. (citing PBGC v. White, 998 F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir.1993)). Instead, “the court may consider and weigh evidence outside the pleadings to determine if it has jurisdiction.” Id. at 178. Ultimately, the burden lies with Atkinson, as plaintiff, to demonstrate the existence of federal subject matter jurisdiction over his claims. See Kehr Packages, Inc. v. Fidelcor, Inc., 926 F.2d 1406, 1409 (3d Cir.1991). 2. Discussion Defendants raise two primary arguments against the court’s exercise of subject matter jurisdiction over relator’s claims, and in order to fully understand each, it is necessary to explore briefly the historical development of the False Claims Act. As more fully delineated by the Third Circuit in United States ex rel. Stinson, Lyons, Gerlin & Bustamante, P.A. v. Prudential Ins. Co., the FCA dates back to 1863, when it was adopted “in response to rampant fraud by Civil War defense contractors.” 944 F.2d 1149, 1153 (3d Cir.1991). The Act embodied an expansive remedial scheme, “allowing any person to prosecute a claim on behalf of the United States against any person who knowingly submitted a false claim to the Government.” Id. In the 1940s, however, abuse of the qui tam form of action became prevalent, as individuals without any independent knowledge of false claims were nonetheless bringing FCA suits, often after learning of the fraud in question by inspecting criminal indictments. See id. In 1943, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of this practice, see United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U.S. 537, 63 S.Ct. 379, 87 L.Ed. 443 (1943), and Congress responded that same year by amending the FCA to “bar[ ] jurisdiction where a qui tam suit was based on information in the possession of the government unless the information on which the suit was based was ‘original with such person.’ ” Id. (quoting 89 Cong. Rec. 510, 744 (daily ed. Dec. 16, 1943)). As indicated by the Stinsoncourt, the post-1943 language “was broadly construed by courts to bar jurisdiction whenever the Government possessed the information on which the claim was brought, even when the information had been provided to the Government by the qui tam plaintiff before the filing of the claim.” Id. at 1153-54. This strict interpretation ultimately proved to be overly rigid, and the FCA was again amended on October 27,1986, at which time the Act assumed its current, less constrictive form. Indeed, in enacting the 1986 amendment to the False Claims Act, Congress sought to “encourage persons with first-hand knowledge of fraudulent misconduct to report fraud.” Stinson, 944 F.2d at 1154. Consistent with this purpose, the FCA’s previous focus on whether the government possessed the information in question at the time of the action’s inception was replaced with a concern with whether the relator learned of the alleged fraud through certain specified public disclosures. See generally id. at 1152. This principle is codified at 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4), which provides that: (A) No court shall have jurisdiction over an action under this section based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in a criminal, civil, or administrative hearing, in a congressional, administrative, or Government Accounting Office report, hearing, audit, or investigation, or from the news media, unless the action is brought by the Attorney General or the person bringing the action is an original source of the information. (B) For purposes of this paragraph, “original source” means an individual who has direct and independent knowledge of the information on which the allegations are based and has voluntarily provided the information to the Government before filing an action under this section which is based on the information. Defendants’ first argument regarding the court’s subject matter jurisdiction is a broad contention, and it revolves around the non-retroactivity of the FCA’s 1986 amendment. See generally Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U.S. 939, 945-52, 117 S.Ct. 1871, 138 L.Ed.2d 135 (1997) (holding that the 1986 amendment does not apply retroactively to conduct occurring prior to its effective date). It posits, in general terms, that those of plaintiffs allegations that focus on events occurring prior to October 27, 1986 are governed by the highly restrictive, pre-amendment version of the FCA’s jurisdictional bar. Under this earlier, tougher standard, defendants assert, relator’s claims are non-jurisdietional, as the government possessed at the time of this action’s inception the information on which these allegations are based. Distilled to its essence, defendants’ second argument, while factually intricate, stems from a fairly straightforward legal proposition. It assumes that relator’s claims are governed by the posN1986 incarnation of the FCA, and it posits that at the time that this action was filed, the allegations or transactions underlying each of relator’s claims had been publicly disclosed through one of the means enumerated in § 3730(e)(4)(A). Defendants further assert that Atkinson is not an “original source” of this information within the meaning of § 3730(e)(4)(B). Accordingly, Penn Ship and Fidelity aver, the court has been statutorily denied original jurisdiction over Atkinson’s claims. a. Defendants’ First Jurisdictional Argument As mentioned above, prior to being amended in 1986, the FCA’s jurisdictional bar based on public disclosure was draconian as compared with its modern incarnation. Indeed, the Act not only eliminated federal jurisdiction over qui tam suits in which the relator’s allegations of fraud were based on allegations or transactions that had been publicly disclosed, but it also excluded from the purview of the federal courts any FCA action based on evidence possessed by the government when the action was brought. Taken literally, as routinely occurred prior to 1986, this statutory framework “bar[red] jurisdiction ... even when the information had been provided to the Government by the qui tam plaintiff before the filing of the claim.” Stinson, 944 F.2d at 1153-54 (citing United States ex rel. Wisconsin v. Dean, 729 F.2d 1100, 1106 (7th Cir.1984) and United States v. Aster, 275 F.2d 281 (3d Cir.1960)). Although the 1986 amendment lessened the jurisdictional constriction occasioned by the pre-1986 version of the FCA, defendants contend that this amendment is not retroactively applicable to false claims submitted before the date of the amendment’s enactment. See Memorandum in Support of Motion of Defendant Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company to Dismiss the Third Amended Complaint for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction (“Def.’s Memo.”) at 52 (citing Hughes Aircraft Co., 520 U.S. at 946, 117 S.Ct. 1871). Moreover, they assert, “the Third Circuit has held that this [pre-amendment] provision ... bars qui tam claims based on false claims submitted before October 27,1986 if the government had evidence or information upon which the qui tam [suit is] based when the action was brought, even if it obtained the information after [October 27, 1986].” Id. (citing United States ex rel. Cantekin v. University of Pittsburgh, 192 F.3d 402, 409 (3d Cir.1999)). Defendants posit that, when applied to this case, these principles mandate the dismissal of the first through tenth counts of Atkinson’s complaint, as the alleged conspiracy and false statements on which these counts are based occurred prior to the amendment of the FCA on October 27, 1986, and the government had evidence of the same on December 5, 1994, the date on which the instant action was filed. Def.’s Motion at 52-53. Relator contests this assertion. He contends that while defendants are correct in that the pre-1986 version of the FCA’s jurisdictional bar applies to false claims submitted before October 27,1986, most of the claims at issue in this suit were submitted after that date. See Plaintiff-Relator’s Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss (“Relator’s Memo.”) at 49. Specifically, he avers that while the award of the Oiler contract and the fraudulent assertions that induced the Navy’s assent thereto predated the amendment, the actual submission and payment of most of Penn Ship’s fraudulent claims occurred after the amendment’s effective date. See id. Upon reviewing the parties’ contentions as to this issue, I conclude that Atkinson’s is more compelling. Preliminarily, as plaintiff concedes, defendants’ assertion regarding the non-retroactivity of the 1986 amendment is well-founded. See Cantekin, 192 F.3d at 409 (“[T]he pre-1986 law [applies] to all [claims] submitted prior to the October 27, 1986 effective date.”); Relator’s Memo, at 49. As such, to evaluate defendants’ first jurisdictional argument, it is necessary to determine which, if any, of the alleged false claims submitted by Penn Ship antedated the 1986 amendment. The obvious way to begin this analysis is by clarifying the meaning of the word “claim” as it is used in the FCA. It is unnecessary to embark on a wide-ranging definitional search, however, as that term is explicitly defined by the False Claims Act. The statute states: For purposes of this section, “claim” includes any request or demand, whether under a contract or otherwise, for money or property which is made to a contractor, grantee, or other recipient if the United States Government provides any portion of the money or property which is requested or demanded, .or if the Government will reimburse such contractor, grantee, or other recipient for any portion of the money or property which is requested or demanded. 31 U.S.C. § 3729(c); see also Hutchins v. Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, 253 F.3d 176, 183-84 (3d Cir.2001). Notably, this definition encompasses only requests or demands for money or property; pursuant to the principle of ex-pressio unius est exclusio alterius, excluded from this definition are mere false statements or representations which ultimately lead to a request or demand for money or property. As stated by the Fourth Circuit: In order for a false statement to be actionable under the False Claims Act it must constitute a “false or fraudulent claim.” “[T]he statute attaches liability, not to the underlying fraudulent activity or to the government’s wrongful payment, but to the ‘claim for payment.’ ” Therefore, a central question in False Claims Act cases is whether the defendant ever presented a “false or fraudulent claim” to the government. Interpreting the last word of the phrase is fairly easy. The False Claims Act states that a claim “includes any request or demand ... for money or property” where the government provides any portion of the money or property requested. In other words, the False Claims Act at least requires the presence of a claim-a call upon the government fisc-for liability to attach. Harrison v. Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776, 785 (4th Cir.1999) (quoting United States v. Rivera, 55 F.3d 703, 709 (1st Cir.1995)). In this case, relator alleges (and defendants do not dispute) that the only requests or demands for payment made by Penn Ship prior to October 27, 1986 were roughly the first half of the biweekly reimbursement invoices that it submitted to the Navy from the inception of the Oiler contract on May 6, 1985 until the contract’s conversion into a fixed price agreement on June 16, 1988. See generally Complaint ¶ 98. None of Penn Ship’s other requests or demands for payment were made prior to the FCA’s 1986 amendment. When relator’s complaint is examined closely, it becomes apparent that only the “additional” count advanced by Atkinson is based directly-and it only in part-on these pre-October 27, 1986 claims. None of plaintiffs other counts that concern actions allegedly taken by Penn Ship prior to the FCA amendment’s effective date sound in the submission of false or fraudulent claims per se. Rather, they concern the making of false representations that induced the Navy’s acquiescence to the Oiler contract, pursuant to which Penn Ship allegedly submitted false claims to the Navy both before and after October 27, 1986. Because many of the demands for payment that these representations allegedly rendered fraudulent were made after the amendment’s effective date, the counts of relator’s complaint that are based on these representations are not subject to the pre-amendment jurisdictional bar. Accordingly, the pre-1986 version of the FCA’s jurisdictional provision applies only to Atkinson’s “additional” count-that is, the claim focusing on Penn Ship’s submission to the Navy of the biweekly invoices or vouchers-and only to the extent that this count concerns submissions made prior to October 27, 1986. Insofar as that count focuses on those claims, then, the court is without subject matter jurisdiction if the facts on which relator’s allegations are based were known to the government at the time at which this action was filed, i.e., on December 5, 1994. While,' as explained, I am free to look beyond the four corners of relator’s complaint to resolve the question of what the government knew when, I find such to be unnecessary in the present context. This is so because, by his own admission, Atkinson “reported what he learned to various government agencies as he learned it, in the hope that the wrongs would be investigated, stopped and remedied.” Complaint ¶ 14. Whether or not he learned of (and thus reported) Penn Ship’s pre-1986 fraudulent claims at the times of their submission, by logical necessity he knew of them some time before the instant complaint was drafted, and thus, by virtue of plaintiffs own account, the court must conclude that, at the time of this suit’s inception, the government had within its possession information regarding these fraudulent pre-amendment claims on the part of Penn Ship. This appears to be precisely the sort of case described by the Third Circuit in Stinson, that is, one in which federal jurisdiction is barred despite the fact that “the information [was] provided to the Government by the qui tam plaintiff before the filing of the claim.” 944 F.2d at 1154. Accordingly, to the extent that it concerns claims submitted by Penn Ship prior to October 27, 1986, plaintiffs additional count will be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. b. Defendants’ Second Jurisdictional Argument Defendants next argue that the factual basis for each count of Atkinson’s complaint was publicly disclosed through one of the means enumerated in 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) prior to appearing in the complaint, and that plaintiff is not an “original source” of this information as per § 3730(e)(4)(B). The Third Circuit has made it clear that in a FCA case featuring a § 3730(e)(4) challenge to multiple claims, it is necessary to evaluate the relator’s claims individually to resolve the question of subject matter jurisdiction. United States ex rel. Merena v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 205 F.3d 97, 102 (3d Cir.2000) (“[I]n applying section (e)(4), it seems clear that each claim in a multi-claim complaint must be treated as if it stood alone.”). Thus, the court must undertake a bipartite inquiry in the context of each of plaintiffs claims. First, I must determine whether the allegation or transaction on which the claim is based was publicly disclosed through one of the means delineated in § 3730(e)(4)(A) prior to appearing in Atkinson’s complaint. See United States ex rel. Dunleavy v. County of Delaware, 123 F.3d 734, 740 (3d Cir.1997). In making this determination, the court must be mindful of the Third Circuit’s holding that “the FCA’s reference to ‘allegations or transactions’ is in the disjunctive, so that disclosures which reveal either the allegations of fraud or the elements of the underlying fraudulent transaction are sufficient to invoke the jurisdictional bar.” Id. (citations omitted). Notably, after articulating this general proposition, the Dunleavy court adopted the D.C. Circuit’s formulaic expression of this interpretation of the “public disclosure” provision. See id. at 741 (citing United States ex rel. Springfield Terminal Ry. Co. v. Quinn, 14 F.3d 645, 654 (D.C.Cir.1994)). In Springfield Terminal, the D.C. Circuit recognized that if an allegation of fraud is represented by the symbol Z, the fraudulent transaction consists of two elements: a misrepresented state of facts (X), and a true state of facts (Y). See 14 F.3d at 655. Translated into a variable equation, this formula appears as follows: Z = X + Y. See id.; Dunleavy, 123 F.3d at 741 (“[T]he inference of fraud requires recognition of but two elements: ‘A misrepresented state of facts and a true state of facts.’ ... Injected into the above formula the variables take on the following labels: ‘X (misrepresented state of facts) + Y (true state of facts) = Z (fraud).’ ” (quoting Springfield Terminal, 14 F.3d at 655 and United States ex rel. Findley v. FPC-Boron Employees’ Club, 105 F.3d 675, 687 (D.C.Cir.(1997)). Thus, if I am to conclude that a fraudulent allegation or transaction has been publicly disclosed within the meaning of 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A), either Z or both X and Y must have been revealed to the general public through one of the means specified in that section. Our Court of Appeals also has addressed the meaning of the phrase “based upon” as used in § 3730(e)(4)(A). See United States ex rel. Mistick PBT v. Hous. Auth., 186 F.3d 376, 385-88 (3d Cir.1999). In analyzing the meaning of that language, the Mistick court first considered the Fourth Circuit’s reading of the phrase, namely that “ ‘based upon’ means actually derived from.” Id. at 385 (citing United States ex rel. Siller v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 21 F.3d 1339, 1348 (4th Cir.1994)). However, the court ultimately rejected this interpretation as one that effectively would render the “original source” exception superfluous. See id. at 386-87. In the end, the court aligned itself with nearly every other court of appeals that had considered the issue, and held that “‘based upon’ means ‘supported by’ or ‘substantially similar to,’ so that the relator’s independent knowledge of the information is irrelevant.” Id. at 386 (citations omitted). Put differently, a claim brought by a particular relator will be said to be “based on” a public disclosure “if the disclosure sets out either the allegations advanced in the qui tam [claim] or all of the essential elements of the qui tam action’s claim[ ],” i.e., Z or X + Y. Id. at 388. Second, if a given claim advanced by relator is based on an allegation or transaction that was publicly disclosed, I must decide whether Atkinson is an original source of that information. See United States ex rel. Barth v. Ridgedale Elec., Inc., 44 F.3d 699, 703 (8th Cir.1995) (“A court reaches the original source question only if it finds the plaintiffs suit is based on information that has already been publicly disclosed.”). Under § 3730(e)(4)(B), an “original source” is one with “direct and independent knowledge of the information on which the allegations are based” who “has voluntarily provided the information to the Government before filing an action under [the FCA].” Id. Direct knowledge is that which is possessed immediately, without any “intervening agency, instrumentality or influence.” Stinson, 944 F.2d at 1160. As the Stinsoncourt further noted, “a relator who would not have learned of the information absent public disclosure [does] not have ‘independent’ information within the statutory definition of ‘original source.’ ” Id. Indeed, “[w]hile ‘it is not necessary for a relator to have all the relevant information in order to qualify as independent,’ ” ... a relator cannot be said to [fall within the original source exception] if [he] has no direct knowledge of the allegedly fraudulent statements” on which his claim is based. Mistick, 186 F.3d at 389 (quoting Stinson, 944 F.2d at 1160). In applying this analytical framework to relator’s complaint, it will be necessary at the outset to specify with precision the essential elements of the particular allegation(s) or transaction(s) in question; without knowing exactly what occurrences are at issue, it would be impossible to determine whether those occurrences had been publicly disclosed. While this determination will be obvious in some cases, e.g., plaintiffs claims concerning specific financial statements, it will be less easily made in others, e.g., defining precisely the elements of the conspiracy alleged in Atkinson’s first count. Once this process is complete, I may undertake the above-described “public disclosure” and, if necessary, “original source” analyses. Count One The first count of relator’s complaint concerns an alleged conspiracy between Penn Ship and Fidelity to cause “false and fraudulent claims and reverse false claims [to be] allowed or paid in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(3).” Complaint ¶ 104. Drawing on the allegations made by Atkinson, defendants identify-and plaintiff explicitly confirms the existence of-four components of this conspiracy. See Def.’s Memo, at 24; Relator’s Memo, at 44. First, they describe Penn Ship’s alleged participation as consisting of its intentional failure to record the security instruments identified in the Trust Indenture. Def.’s Memo, at 24. Next, they characterize Fidelity’s alleged role in the conspiracy as being comprised of three distinct actions or sets of actions: 1) its efforts to convince the Navy to accept a version of the Trust Indenture that excluded a provision for the delivery by Fidelity of all recording documents to the Navy; 2) its failure to exercise its right under the Trust Indenture to seek, at no cost to itself, the advice of counsel regarding the actions necessary or advisable to perfect the Navy’s security interests as identified therein-put differently, Fidelity’s failure to ensure that the security instruments were recorded; and 3) its failure to sign the UCC-1 financing statements as would have been necessary to perfect the Navy’s security interests. Id. Defendants then proceed to delineate the way(s) in which each of these three allegations are based on public disclosures within the meaning of 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). Id. at 24-27. The Public Disclosure Bar Importantly, not only does Atkinson explicitly concur with defendants’ breakdown of his conspiracy claim, but he also agrees that the three components of that conspiracy that concern Fidelity’s actions and omissions are based on public disclosures. See Relator’s Memo, at 44. Yet relator posits, in the formulaic terms first employed in Springfield Terminal, 14 F.3d at 655, that while Fidelity’s actions and omissions together constitute the X component of the alleged fraud, the Y eomponent-which plaintiff asserts to be the fact of Penn Ship’s non-recording of the security instruments-has not been established by defendants as having been publicly disclosed. See id. Instead, he contends that he learned of Penn Ship’s failure to perfect the Navy’s security interests through Schorsch’s “inspection of Delaware County real estate records,” and that those records do not qualify under § 3730(e)(4)(A) as a public disclosure. Relator’s Memo, at 40. He avers that this inspection transpired sometime prior to March 4, 1993, the date on which he first alleged in the predecessor action that Penn Ship had failed to perfect the Navy’s security interests. Relator’s Memo, at (citing App. at 717-19). Subsequently, plaintiff contends, the fact of Penn Ship’s non-recording first was publicly disclosed in “a letter from the Navy to Mr. Schorsch, relating to his administrative appeal as to the disposition of a FOIA request, which letter is dated March 12, 1993.” Relator’s Memo, at 17. He argues that his pre-public disclosure allegations of Penn Ship’s non-recording cannot be “based upon” subsequent public disclosures no matter how similar they may be, even under Mistick, and although the Predecessor Action was dismissed, the repetition of those same allegations in subsequent pleadings can not render them ... any more “based upon” the intervening disclosures than they were at the earlier time of their first assertion. Relator’s Memo. at 42. Because his allegation of Penn Ship’s non-recording cannot be said to be “based on” any public disclosure, Atkinson concludes, the jurisdictional bar contained within § 3730(e)(4)(A) is inapplicable to the first count of his complaint. Defendants respond to this argument in two ways. First, they assert that the Springfield Terminal approach is misplaced here, as the issue presented by Atkinson’s first count is not whether the fact of a fraud has been publicly disclosed, but rather whether the elements of a conspiracy were revealed to the public. See Reply of Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company to Relator’s Opposition to the Motions to Dismiss for Lack of Sub-jech-Matter Jurisdiction (“Reply”) at 5. This assertion is well-founded. While both the commission of fraud against the government and conspiracies to do the same are actionable under the False Claims Act, see 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1) and (3), these activities are essentially different in character. Whereas fraud, as indicated in Springfield Terminal and Dunleavy, is comprised of a false representation as to a fact and a true representation as to the same fact, a viable conspiracy claim under § 3729(a)(3) consists of a showing “ ‘(1) that the defendant conspired with one or more persons to get a false or fraudulent claim allowed or paid by the United States, and (2) that one or more conspirators performed any act to get a false or fraudulent claim allowed or paid.’ ” Atkinson, 2000 WL 1207162, at *7 (quoting United States v. Hill, 676 F.Supp. 1158, 1178 (N.D.Fla.1987)). Accordingly, the question before the court is not whether the Y component of a fraud has been publicly disclosed, but rather whether one or more of the “vital ingredients” of the conspiracy at issue in count one-i.e., the agreement and at least one act by one conspirator in furtherance thereof-“exist[ed] in the public eye” before they were alleged by relator. Springfield Terminal, 14 F.3d at 657; see also United States ex rel. Long v. SCS Bus. & Technical Inst., 999 F.Supp. 78, 87 (D.D.C.1998) (applying Springfield Terminal in the context of a conspiracy claim, and concluding that the key question to be resolved in determining the applicability of the public disclosure provision is whether the “vital ingredients” of the conspiracy allegation had been publicly disclosed), rev’d on other grounds, 173 F.3d 870 (D.C.Cir.1999). Defendants’ second response to relator’s argument, then, is that each of the essential elements of the conspiracy alleged by Atkinson had been publicly disclosed prior to being raised by plaintiff. Penn Ship and Fidelity note first Atkinson’s failure to contest their arguments regarding the public disclosure of Fidelity’s alleged acts and omissions. They then contend that Penn Ship’s non-recording of the Navy’s security instruments similarly had been publicly disclosed not only prior to relator’s instant conspiracy allegation, but pri- or to Atkinson’s March, 1993 allegation of non-recordation in the predecessor qui tam proceeding as well. See Reply at 8-9. Specifically, they posit that this information was revealed in a January 11, 1993 letter from Navy Vice Admiral Kenneth C. Malley to Schorsch. See id. The letter was written in response to Schorsch’s request for a meeting regarding his FOIA request, and stated in pertinent part: With regard to your request for a meeting, I do not believe that one is necessary since your position is clear from your comments to the Philadelphia Section of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers. Further, there is nothing to suggest that the Navy’s interests were prejudiced as a result of the non-filing of the trust indenture. Reply at 9 (citing App. at 851). Defendants argue additionally that Penn Ship’s non-recording was publicly disclosed several times after Atkinson’s allegation of such in the previous action but before the filing of the instant qui tam suit. See Def.’s Memo, at 41 (“This omission was publicly disclosed in documents produced by the Navy in its October, 1993 response to Schorsch’s FOIA request, in [a March 24,] 1994 [Department of Defense Inspector General] (“DoD IG”) Audit Report and in the 1995 Senate hearings.” (citing App. 507, 509; 273; and 326)); see also Reply at 8. It seems apparent that regardless of whether the Malley letter constituted a public disclosure-indeed, disregarding the very existence of this correspondence-relator’s allegation in this action that Penn Ship failed to record the Navy’s security instruments was, under Mistick, based on multiple public disclosures. While the parties contest the import of the Malley communique, there are several facts that are not in dispute, two of which are dispositive of this question. First, the fact of Penn Ship’s non-recording was publicly disclosed within the meaning of § 3730(e)(4)(A) in the Navy’s October 12, 1993 response to Schorsch’s FOIA request and again in the DoD IG’s March 24, 1994 Audit Report. See App. at 509, 273. Indeed, it is indisputable that both FOIA responses and government audit reports fall within the scope of that section. See Mistick, 186 F.3d at 383; § 3730(e)(4)(A). Second, plaintiffs current action subsequently was filed on December 5, 1994, at which time it alleged that Penn Ship failed to record the security instruments. To reiterate, § 3730(e)(4)(A) reads as follows: No court shall have jurisdiction over an action under this section based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in a criminal, civil, or administrative hearing, in a congressional, administrative, or Government Accounting Office report, hearing, audit, or investigation, or from the news media, unless the action is brought by the Attorney General or the person bringing the action is an original source of the information. This provision, on its face, permits no exception aside from the “original source” clause. To further reiterate, a claim is “based on” a certain disclosure when that disclosure supports or is “substantially similar to” the plaintiffs claim, Mistick, 186 F.3d at 386, i.e., “sets out ... all of the essential elements of the qui tam aetion[ ] claim[ ].” Id. at 388. Accordingly, where a public disclosure precedes the relator’s assertion in a given action of a claim featuring the information contained within that disclosure, the plaintiffs assertion is “based on” that disclosure. Plaintiff himself concedes that “the court need only compare the allegations in the relator’s pleading to public disclosures that had been made as of the filing date.” Relator’s Memo. at 41. Wholly beside the point, under the straightforward Mistick analysis, is a relator’s own previous assertion of the relevant allegation or transaction in a prior action or his previous discovery of such via non-public means. While these considerations might have precluded the application of the public disclosure bar in the predecessor action, and although they certainly impact the original source analysis in this case, they do not alter the fact that the information was disclosed via a statutorily-enumerated means prior to its assertion in this action by relator. To sanction Atkinson’s reading of the statute would be to render the original source exception superfluous, thereby ignoring the concern that led the Third Circuit to reject the interpretation of the public disclosure bar urged by the Mistick relator. See Mistick, 186 F.3d at 386. The problem with the assertion at issue in Mistick-namelj that an action or claim is based upon a public disclosure only when the relator actually relied on that disclosure in garnering information to support his claim(s)-is that the original source exception would virtually never apply. Indeed, the exception obviously could not rescue the relator who falls within this constricted public disclosure provision, as a plaintiff who learns of certain information via a statutorily-delineated source is by definition not an original source. Stated alternatively, if the public disclosure bar were to not apply where the relator himself possessed the relevant information prior to the public disclosure-which itself preceded the relator’s claim based on that information-the only plaintiffs who would fall within the public disclosure provision would be those who did not themselves possess the information prior to the disclosure, and thus, in all likelihood, are not original sources. See United States ex rel. Merena v. Smithkline Beecham Corp., 114 F.Supp.2d 352, 358 (E.D.Pa.2000) (“[T]he last phrase of subsection (A) of § 3730(e)(4) could have stated: ‘or the person bringing the action is an individual who has direct and independent knowledge of the information on which the allegations are based and has voluntarily provided that information to the Government before there is any public disclosure.’ Subsection (B) would then have become unnecessary and superfluous.”) (emphasis original). Importantly, the FCA explicitly provides for cases in which the qui tarn plaintiff possessed the relevant information regarding a given allegation or transaction before it was publicly disclosed. Yet it does so through the operation of the original source exception, not by precluding entirely the application of the public disclosure provision. See 30 U.S.C. §§ 3730(e)(4)(A) and (B); Mistick, 186 F.3d at 386 (“ ‘Congress provided] an exception in the case of a relator who has actually derived his complaint from public information, that allows him to demonstrate that he already provided his independently obtained knowledge to the government before he filed suit ....’” (quoting Findley, 105 F.3d at 683)). Thus, the element of Atkinson’s conspiracy claim that consists of Penn Ship’s failure to record the Navy’s security instruments under the Trust Indenture is based on the antecedent FOIA response and DoD IG Audit Report, as these disclosures unambiguously reveal the non-recordation. Thus, each of the four components of plaintiffs conspiracy claim-that is, the three actions allegedly taken by Fidelity and Penn Ship’s non-recording of the Trust Indenture-is based on a “public disclosure” as that phrase is defined in § 3730(e)(4)(A). Accordingly, it is necessary to determine whether Atkinson is an original source of this information. The Original Source Exception As stated, relator asserts that he learned of Penn Ship’s non-recording through Schorseh’s perusal of Delaware County real estate records. See Relator’s Memo. at 17, 37, 42. He posits that although Schorsch is no longer a relator in this action, he may nonetheless be considered an original source of information learned by Schorsch when they were corelators. See id. at 37. Atkinson also contends that on February 25, 1993, Schorsch voluntarily informed the government that the Navy’s security interests had not been perfected, thereby fulfilling the second requirement for “original source” status under § 3730(e)(4)(B). See id. at 38. Defendants raise several arguments against the proposition that Atkinson is an original source of this information. As a preliminary matter, they contend that relator is precluded by “a [stipulation signed on behalf of himself and Schorsch and entered as an order by this [c]ourt and by the FCA itself’ from asserting that he is an original source of any information that actually was learned by Schorsch. Reply at 1. Penn Ship and Fidelity specifically draw the court’s attention to a June 21, 1999 agreement providing that Schorsch “shall not be deemed a relator in this action for any purpose,” and that “[rjelator Paul E. Atkinson shall be deemed the sole relator in this action for all purposes.” Reply at 2 (quoting App. 655, 657). Defendants assert that the impact of this stipulation is to remove Schorsch from the status of relator without any temporal limitation, so that Atkinson cannot be considered an original source even of information learned by Schorsch during the period in which they were co-relators. Moreover, defendants allege, pursuant to the plain language of § 8730(e)(4), “the person bringing the action” must have “direct and independent” knowledge of the information underlying the allegation(s) or transaction(s) in question for the original source exception to apply. Because plaintiff-the only person bringing the instant action-learned of the non-recording through a former co-relator, they contend, the requisite directness is lacking. Reply at 2-3. Defendants also argue that “Atkinson actually derived the non-recording allegation from [Admiral Malle/s January 11, 1993 letter] to Schorsch, not from Schorsch’s examination of the Delaware County land records ...” Reply at 10. They further assert that even assuming that plaintiff did glean the fact that Penn Ship never recorded the security instruments from Schorsch’s inspection of the Delaware County records, such makes relator, “at best, a mere gatherer of information and not an original source.” Reply at 10 n. 8. Upon considering defendants’ arguments as to the inapplicability of the original source exception to relator’s knowledge of Penn Ship’s non-recordation, I find these contentions uniformly to be unpersuasive. First, defendants argue that by virtue of both the above-referenced stipulation and the operation of § 3730(e)(4)(B), Atkinson cannot be considered an original source of information unearthed during Schorsch’s inspection of the Delaware County records. It is clear that in most False Claims Act cases in which the plaintiff is not the individual who actually obtained the information in question, the original source exception will not apply. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Fine v. MK-Ferguson Co., 99 F.3d 1538, 1547 (10th Cir.1996); Stinson, 944 F.2d at 1160 (defining “direct knowledge” as that “ ‘marked by absence of intervening agency ... ’ ” (quoting Webster’s Third International Dictionary 640 (1976))). Yet the issue before the court-i.e., the effect of Schorsch’s garnering the information on which the “non-recording” component of relator’s conspiracy claim is based-is more subtle. Specifically, I am called upon to determine whether relator’s knowledge of certain information can be said to be “direct” when such is based on information gathered by his former co-relator. While courts have spoken in general terms about both the need for, and the definition of, directness, as that concept is employed in § 3730(e)(4)(B), no tribunal of which I am aware has addressed the precise question currently at bar. Contrary to defendants’ implication, one’s status as an original source is not something that can be altered by subsequent events. If at Time 1 an individual (who later becomes a qui tam relator) genuinely has direct and independent knowledge of Fact A, then no ensuing event can change the fact that he possessed such knowledge at Time 1. While subsequent events could demonstrate that the individual never had direct and independent knowledge of Fact A in the first place, or could strip him prospectively of his knowledge of this fact, they cannot retroactively alter his possession of such knowledge at Time 1. Accordingly, Schorsch’s current presence within (or absence from) this suit could not affect the directness and independence of Atkinson’s knowledge, and for this reason defendants’ stipulation-based argument fails. While that agreement states that Schorsch “shall not be deemed a relator in this action for any purpose,” App. at 655, this does nothing to change the fact that if Atkinson personally gained direct and independent knowledge of Penn Ship’s non-recording by virtue of Schorsch’s inspection of the Delaware County records, then Schorsch’s withdrawal from this action could not deprive Atkinson of his original source status. Conversely, if Atkinson did not possess original source status ab initio, then Schorsch’s withdrawal from this action is similarly irrelevant; it is impossible to deprive an individual of something he never possessed in the first place. Accordingly, the pivotal question to be resolved is whether Schorsch’s discovery of the fact of Penn Ship’s failure to record the Navy’s security instruments provided Atkinson with direct and independent knowledge of the same. This is the issue to which defendants’ second argument pertains, and to answer this question it is necessary to explore the contours of the relationship between co-relators. Unfortunately, this is a relationship that has received a paucity of attention from the courts and academic commentators. Perhaps the reason for this is that “[i]n theory, no False Claims Act case should have more than one relator for each com-plaint_” Efrem M. Grail, “Qui Tam” Insurance & False Claims Act Settlement, 11 Health Law. 16, 17 (1998). This is a product of the “first to file” rule, codified at 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5), which creates a “ ‘race to the courthouse,’ under which the qui tam relator who first brings suit may have later-filed actions brought by other qui tam relators dismissed, even if those cases are more factually developed,” thereby avoiding the necessity of sharing recovery proceeds. Id. Indeed, on its face, the FCA’s public disclosure provision contemplates qui tam actions as being brought by one individual. See § 3730(e)(4)(A) (discussing “the person bringing the action”). Yet as Grail explains, it is possible for relators to join forces. While this forces them to share any recovery, it enables them to avail themselves of the “additional investigation and ... more complete case development” that is made feasible by the presence of the other. Id. Accordingly, “[wjhile each relator would then get a lesser share, the total recovery on which their percentage is based could be greatly increased.” Id. As indicated supra, no court of which I am aware has determined whether a relator has direct and independent knowledge of information discovered directly by his co-relator. Yet keeping in mind the language and aim of the original source exception, I conclude that the answer to this question depends on the particular circumstances presented in a given case. For example, one might consider the sort of co-relator relationship envisioned by Grail. Let us suppose that 2 individuals who may or may not know each other-call them Ken and Ginger-undertake wholly independent investigations, during the course of which each discerns a separate fact which, when combined, form the X and Y elements of a complete fraud claim. Neither would have known of the component discovered by the other except through each other. They subsequently share their findings, provide this information to the government, and then institute a