The United States Department of Justice has announced that it has recovered over $3.5 Billion from cases brought under the False Claims Act (FCA) in fiscal year 2015.  This significant aggregate recovery is a slight decline from the $5.69 Billion that was recovered in fiscal year 2014; however, it is the fourth consecutive year in which the Federal Government has recovered at least $3.5 Billion in connection with False Claims cases.

There were a couple of industries from which the Government derived the substantial majority of its aggregate recovery.  The healthcare industry was once again the largest source of the Government’s recovery as $1.9 Billion came from the healthcare industry.  The cases in healthcare largely involved allegations of kickbacks to healthcare providers, allegations of unnecessary care, and allegations of excessive charges for goods and services that were paid for by federally funded healthcare programs.

The second largest segment of the Government’s aggregate recovery came from government contractors, as the Government recovered $1.1 Billion in connection with allegations of false claims that were submitted in connection with government contracts (which includes defense and national security contracts, as well as programs related to the mortgage industry, research grants, and agriculture).

A substantial majority of the FCA cases that were filed during fiscal year 2015 were filed under the FCA’s whistleblower provisions.  There were 638 lawsuits that were filed by FCA relators during fiscal year 2015.  Moreover, the Government recovered approximately 80% of its total recovery ($2.8 Billion) from such qui tam lawsuits in fiscal year 2015, although some of those qui tam lawsuits were filed in prior years.