Another year, another record.
U.S. Justice Department officials today touted the nearly $5 billion in settlements and judgments the government has collected under the False Claims act, topping last year's then-record of $3.2 billion.
Tony West, the acting associate attorney general, told reporters today that the bulk of the recoveries flowed from health care fraud initiatives.
"The False Claims Act is, quite simply, the most powerful tool that we have to deter and redress fraud," West said in prepared remarks.
DOJ since January 2009 has recovered $13.3 billion in False Claims Act cases, the highest amount in any four-year period in the department's history, West said.
West and Stuart Delery, the acting head of the Civil Division, also praised the work of whistleblowers. West called whistleblowers "brave citizens who step forward to report fraud -- often at great personal risk."
Last year, West said, whistleblowers filed nearly 650 actions under the False Claims Act—a record number. DOJ is not intervening in a greater number of the whistleblower suits than in previous years, Delery said.
In his remarks, Delery highlighted several of the cases that contributed to the record-level recovery under the False Claims Act.
This article originally appeared as a post on The BLT: The Blog of LegalTimes.
