Law360, New York (May 11, 2016, 12:32 PM EDT) -- In the years following the financial crisis, the U.S. Department of Justice and the relators bar have aggressively used the False Claims Act to target banks and nonbank mortgage lenders and servicers, using increasingly creative theories of liability to hold these companies responsible for failing to adequately protect against financial loss to the government. Most recently, the Justice Department announced a settlement of $1.2 billion against Wells Fargo, which had been accused, among other things, of making false certifications to the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development in connection with its Federal Housing Administration lending program.[1] In other cases involving FHA lending, the government has alleged that lenders lied not only about the quality of particular loans, but also when they made their annual compliance certifications to HUD, which broadly attest to compliance with FHA program requirements.[2] This broad certification theory has met with fierce resistance by the mortgage industry, which insists that FCA liability cannot be premised on so broad a certification....