Seal 1 v. Seal A

Appellant Abraham Gale (“Gale”) worked for ten weeks for Packard-Bell NEC, Inc. (“PBNEC”). After being fired by PBNEC, Gale filed a qui tam action against that company under the False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733 , alleging that it had committed fraud by selling computers to the government as new even though they contained used parts. The government declined to intervene in Gale’s FCA suit, but nonetheless initiated criminal and civil investigations into PBNEC’s allegedly fraudulent practices. The United States Attorney allowed Gale to review documents obtained during at least one of those investigations, as well as during its investigation into one of PBNEC’s then-competitors, Appellee Zenith Data Systems, Inc. (“Zenith”). After learning from the government documents he saw in the office of the United States Attorney, as well as from oral disclosures by government attorneys in that office, that Zenith was probably involved in the same type of fraud as PBNEC, Gale filed a separate FCA action against Zenith. The government, PBNEC, and Zenith subsequently reached a proposed settlement to which Gale objected. After an evidentiary *1157 hearing, the district court held…