On February 1, 2022, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had recovered $5.6 billion from False Claims Act (FCA) Cases during fiscal year 2021. Each year, the DOJ publishes statistics about its recoveries under the FCA and the number of new FCA matters that were filed during the prior year. These FCA statistics provide useful information and offer a window in the DOJ’s enforcement activity and its reliance on private whistleblowers (often called “relators”) who bring FCA cases forward and help the DOJ recover significant sums of money.
The relatively low $2.2 billion in FCA recoveries from 2020 did not accurately reflect on the otherwise strong year of enforcement by the DOJ. The timeframe used to compile the FCA statistics, which ran through September 30, 2020, excluded the DOJ’s massive $2.8 billion settlement with Purdue Pharma LP, which occurred just weeks later on October 21, 2020. As expected, this settlement is now reflected in the 2021 totals, surging the total recoveries to the second largest amount ever recorded and the largest since 2014.
Recoveries in 2020 revealed a clear shift towards the Government bringing its own enforcement actions, those which are not based on whistleblower lawsuits. Because the FCA allows a private whistleblower to bring a FCA action on behalf of the United States, the year-end statistics distinguish the number of new matters and total recoveries that stem from cases that originate from DOJ (the “non qui tam”...
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