DOJ Releases Detailed Statistics on FCA Recoveries Through FY 2020

On January 14, 2021, Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark of the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that the Civil Division recovered over $2.2 billion in settlements and judgments under the False Claims Act (FCA) for fiscal year 2020. This represents a more than $850 million decrease from last year’s figure and a $3.9 billion decrease from the all-time recovery record in 2014. Detailed statistics on FCA cases from 1986 through FY 2020 are available here.

A few observations on the recovery:

  • More than $1.8 billion of the total recovery is attributable to cases involving healthcare fraud.
  • More than $1.6 billion of the total recovery came from cases filed by whistleblowers.
  • The number of new matters increased by 14%.
  • The percentage of suits initiated by DOJ continues to be substantially lower in healthcare fraud matters than in other kinds of qui tams. Only about 2% of FCA suits in the healthcare context are DOJ-initiated. Put differently, virtually all healthcare FCA cases are whistleblower-initiated.