of a contract mandated by statute or regulation, the claimant is subject to liability under the Act for submitting a false claim if that certification of compliance is known by the claimant to be false. The Defendants nonetheless contend that their certification could not have constituted a “false claim” because the government had knowledge of the falsity of the certification when it remitted payment. While we acknowledge that gov ernment knowledge of the falsity of a claim might, under limited circumstances, be a defense to an action under the FCA, see infra Part IV, we find it difficult to comprehend how the government’s awareness that a claimant’s submission was false would in any way affect the truth or falsity of the U.S. 414, 419-20, 110 S.Ct. 2466, 110 L.Ed.2d 387 (1990) (<HOLDING>). We decline to depart from this longstanding
holding that this court erred in concluding that richmond stands for the proposition that equitable estoppel will not lie against the government for any monetary claim and remanding for consideration of the facts supporting the estoppel claim holding in the case of complete subordination that no action lies against the debtor but that a separate action may lie against a guarantor recognizing difference between tolling and equitable estoppel recognizing cause of action for equitable estoppel under erisa recognizing that equitable estoppel will not lie against the government as it lies against private litigants and acknowledging merrill as the leading case in the courts modern line of estoppel decisions