The Department of Justice (DOJ) released its annual summary of False Claims Act (FCA) recoveries for the prior fiscal year, and the data points to a number of notable trends.
Although DOJ brought in the second-highest number of settlements and judgments that the government has ever collected in a single year, the dollar value of those settlements is down significantly from 2021 and remains below pre-pandemic recovery levels. The increased number of total actions coupled with the decrease in total recoveries may be explained by DOJ’s stated emphasis on investigating COVID-19-related stimulus fraud — cases which, on average, tend to produce relatively low-dollar value recoveries compared to larger corporate investigations.
Also noteworthy is the fact that judgments from intervened qui tam actions dropped steeply (nearly 40%) from FY2021. This continues a consistent year-over-year slide going back to 2016 and was the steepest year-by-year drop during that span.
In our view, the most notable trend for fiscal year 2022 recoveries appears to be relators’ increased success in pursuing non-intervened actions. Settlements and judgments from declined qui tams were up over 240% from FY2021 ($1.18 billion from $480 million), which is also nearly double the previous record amount ($602 million in FY2017). Relators share awards from declined matters also jumped over 5.5 times from FY2021, from $62 million to $347 million. Although the enormous Biogen settlement...
Patricia White, 70, of Old Greenwich, received a nine-month prison sentence for submitting false claims for unclaimed properties to around 30 state treasuries. HARRISBURG, Pa. — Months after her br...