In the 2021 Fiscal Year (FY), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) obtained more than $1.6 billion from qui tam whistleblower lawsuits filed under the False Claims Act. According to a February 1 press release, the agency recovered a total of $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments in the most recent FY, which ended on September 30, 2021. In FY 2021, however, the DOJ only paid out $237 million to whistleblowers, the lowest single-year total since FY 2008.
The press release contains information about recoveries the agency made in FY 2021 and reports that the $5.6 billion total is “the second largest annual total in False Claims Act history, and the largest since 2014. Settlement and judgments since 1986, when Congress substantially strengthened the civil False Claims Act, now total more than $70 billion.”
The qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act allow private citizens to file lawsuits on behalf of the federal government if they have knowledge of someone defrauding the government. In FY 2021, the DOJ received 598 qui tam whistleblower lawsuits, “and this past year the department reported settlements and judgments exceeding $1.6 billion in these and earlier-filed suits,” the press release states. “The number of lawsuits filed under the qui tam provisions of the Act has grown significantly since 1986, with 598 qui tam suits filed this past year – an average of over 11 new cases every week,” the press release reports.
While the number of qui tam suits has grown...
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