[co-author: Ben Weinberg]
I. Overview of Fiscal Year 2025 Enforcement
Fiscal year (FY) 2025 was a groundbreaking year for the False Claims Act (FCA) in several respects. Recoveries under the statute reached an all-time high of nearly $7 billion, more than double those in each of the prior three fiscal years and $1.1 billion more than the previous record holder. The FCA was also deployed by the Trump Administration to advance key domestic objectives, pushing the statute into uncharted territories. And yet, despite the substantial recoveries and the statute’s expanded use, robust enforcement of the FCA is at risk, as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) appeals a 2024 district court order holding for the first time that the statute’s qui tam provisions—the engine of the statute’s enforcement—are unconstitutional. From any angle, FY 2025 was significant, with potentially enormous consequences for future FCA activity.
DOJ recently released its year-end report for FY 2025, which ran from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025.1 The report disclosed the year’s extraordinary total recovery of $6.8 billion and provided a window into DOJ’s enforcement priorities.2 According to the report, those priorities continue to be traditional FCA enforcement areas, including health care, federal procurement, and pandemic relief. Indeed, recoveries related to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD)—the agencies most closely associated with health...
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