More than $2.6 billion recovered in 2023 under the False Claims Act: Based on recent data from the U.S. Department of Justice, 2023 was another solid year for recovering public funds under the federal False Claims Act (“FCA”). According to a a recent press release, FCA settlements and judgments this past year exceeded $2.68 billion, the vast majority of which came from whistleblower-initiated qui tam cases. While $2.68 billion is a large number, it is actually a modest dip from recent yearly recoveries, which consistently approached or exceeded $3 billion from 2010 to 2019. A few other interesting data points from the DOJ’s February press release:
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- While the total amount of money recovered in 2023 was down slightly from recent years, the total number of settlements and judgments was the most in the history of the FCA, at 543.
- Of this $2.68 billion, about 16% came from cases that the United States declined and that the whistleblower continued to litigate post-declination.
- The Department of Justice has become much more active in initiating cases of its own. In 2023, there were 500 DOJ-initiated False Claims Act cases (i.e. cases that were not initiated by a whistleblower), which was, by a significant margin, the most in the history of the FCA.
As in prior years, healthcare fraud accounted for the bulk of these recoveries, though there have also been notable COVID-related recoveries relating to such programs as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the DOJ’s cyber-fraud initiative for government contractors violating cybersecurity requirements.
Visit this link for the full text of the DOJ’s February Press release.
