A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges. The case, which became unsealed July 30, 2026, claims Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Informa forced U.S. research institutions to submit false claims to the government for reimbursement through article fees up to 10 times the cost of processing the articles.
Publishers’ fees vary, but APCs for open access can range from hundreds of dollars for small journals up to thousands, with some topping $10,000 per paper. The real costs of processing such articles are between $200 and $1,000, Juan Pablo Alperin, a professor at Simon Fraser University and codirector of the Scholarly Communications Lab based in Vancouver, claims in the complaint. The U.S. government requires papers based on federally funded research be freely available. The lawsuit alleges the publishers address this mandate by “extorting” APCs and copyright transfers from “unknowing” PIs who have an “understandable desire to publish in prestigious venues to advance in their careers.”