On July 16, 2026, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a precedential ruling holding that the state’s 2023 False Claims Act Opposition Amendment applies retroactively to pending litigation.
The court determined that the amendment, which altered how the state attorney general could oppose dismissal of New Jersey False Claims Act lawsuits, constituted a procedural rather than substantive change.
Because the amendment was procedural in nature, the court held it applied immediately to all proceedings, including cases that were already underway when the amendment took effect.
The ruling revived a qui tam relator’s lawsuit that had originally been filed eight years before the 2023 amendment, which challenged the setting of interest rates on government bonds by private financial institutions contracted as remarketing agents.
Prior to 2023, the New Jersey False Claims Act barred relators who were not the original source of underlying information from bringing suits based on publicly disclosed allegations or transactions, a doctrine known as the public disclosure bar.
The 2023 amendment allowed New Jersey’s attorney general to file a notice of opposition to the public disclosure bar without needing to intervene in and take full control of a relator-initiated lawsuit.
The New Jersey Supreme Court cited the United States Supreme Court’s 1994 holding in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, noting that “remedial and procedural statutes can have retroactive effect” because they do not retroactively change a party’s substantive rights.
The court found that the Opposition Amendment “did not alter any vested rights of the parties or the substance or scope of the NJFCA,” and therefore qualified as a procedural change subject to retroactive application.
Defendants had argued that because a separate “original source” amendment to the statute was previously found not to apply retroactively, courts should treat all pre-amendment cases under the old rules across the board.
The court rejected that argument, stating that “in assessing multiple amendments to a statute, courts must examine each provision separately and should not assume that different provisions were intended to have the same applicability to pending cases.”
The “original source” amendment was found to be substantive because it lowered the evidentiary standard for bringing claims, allowing more suits by relators working from secondhand information.
By contrast, the Opposition Amendment “did not change any defined terms, substantive elements, or attach any new rights or legal consequences to pre-amendment conduct,” the court wrote.
The attorney general “always had the ability” to oppose the public disclosure bar, meaning defendants could not reasonably have expected that public disclosure would completely shield them from New Jersey False Claims Act claims.
The ruling signals that the public disclosure bar is now a less reliable defence for businesses facing qui tam actions, as the attorney general need only file a notice of opposition rather than mount a full intervention.
The decision also establishes a broader precedent that procedural amendments to New Jersey law can be applied retroactively to litigation already in progress, meaning businesses in long-running disputes must monitor legislative developments closely throughout the life of a case.