Only the strongest survive. That’s what the DOJ is projecting with the FOCUS initiative, which is meant to bring the agency together with the best data miners digging into FCA whistleblower complaints, write Selina P. Coleman, Lesley C. Reynolds, Thomas H. Suddath, Jr., David A. Bender and Matthew K. Loughran of Reed Smith.
On April 30, the DOJ announced the fraud oversight through careful use of statistics (FOCUS) initiative, a new anti-fraud initiative designed to “improve the Department’s ability to prioritize working with the most successful data miners” filing qui tam, or whistleblower, complaints under the False Claims Act (FCA).
Under this initiative, the DOJ is inviting data miners to meet with the Civil Fraud Section to discuss their capabilities and outline why and how their data signals reliably correlate to fraud. Although these meetings are not a pre-filing requirement, the DOJ stated that it “will prioritize working with data miners who have demonstrated an investment in pre-filing diligence and commitment to analytical rigor, familiarity with program rules, and legally sufficient allegations.”
The FOCUS initiative signals that data miner relators are here to stay and may improve their filings.
The DOJ has received a record number of FCA qui tam complaints in recent years. The DOJ noted in announcing this new initiative it received in 2025 a record 1,300 FCA qui tam complaints, and to date in 2026, it has...
Turkish base fake news in Armenia For several days, a video has been circulating on social media claiming that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan allegedly signed a “secret agreement” with EU ...