WASHINGTON – The Justice Department secured more than $3 billion in settlements and judgments in civil cases involving fraud against the government in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2011, Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, announced today. This is the second year in a row that the department has surpassed $3 billion in recoveries under the False Claims Act, bringing the total since January 2009 to $8.7 billion – the largest three-year total in the Justice Department’s history.
The $3 billion total for fiscal year 2011 includes a record $2.8 billion in recoveries under the whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which is the government’s primary civil remedy to redress false claims for federal money or property, such as Medicare benefits, payments on military contracts, and federal subsidies and loans. The department has recovered more than $30 billion under the False Claims Act since the act was substantially amended in 1986. The 1986 amendments strengthened the act and increased the incentives for whistle blowers to file lawsuits on behalf of the government. That in turn led to an unprecedented number of investigations and greater recoveries.
