Fittingly, on “Tax Day” 2017, the New York Attorney General announced a $40 million settlement based on taxes allegedly avoided by members of Harbinger Capital Partners Offshore Manager LLC (“Harbinger”), a hedge fund investment manager operating in New York City. While the settlement amount itself was record breaking, the underlying source of liability – New York’s state false claims act, N.Y. State Finance Law §§ 187 et seq. (“NYFCA”) – was highly unusual as well. Until now, most civil enforcement actions extracting massive settlements from financial industry companies for fraud allegations unrelated to the securities laws have been the exclusive...