Despite Slowdown in Prosecution, Whistleblowers Continue to Play the Critical Role in Detecting Fraud. In statistics published this week by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. government’s recoveries under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) hit their lowest mark since 2008, the last year of President Bush’s administration.
According to the DOJ statistics, published below, in FY 2018 taxpayers recovered $2.88 billion from fraudsters under the FCA. As in past years, whistleblowers accounted for the overwhelming majority of recoveries. Over $2.1 billion was recovered under qui tam lawsuits filed by whistleblowers, as compared with only $767 million recovered by lawsuits initiated by the government.
In a statement issued by Stephen M. Kohn, a leading whistleblower qui tam attorney and the pro bono Executive Director of the National Whistleblower Center, “Whistleblowers continue to be the driving force in all fraud recoveries. As insiders, whistleblowers are in a unique position to uncover fraud. They place their careers, jobs and well-being at-risk to serve the public interest. They deserve strong support from the American people and their government.”
“Although we are disappointed in the decline in recoveries under the Trump administration’s Justice Department, we hope this is simply a bump in the road, and the FCA will continue to be aggressively utilized to weed out fraud in the years to come,” Kohn added.
The DOJ FCA statistics are linked here:
https://www.justice.gov/civil/page/file/1080696/download?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery