FCA Whistleblowers Received Lowest Total Awards in More than a Decade

The federal whistleblower programs at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have been the subject of quite a bit of praise for their effectiveness, and it’s easy to see why; the agencies’ programs have taken off in a big way over the last several years, and both achieved record numbers in the 2021 fiscal year.

However, False Claims Act whistleblowers actually received the lowest total amount of money in a single year since 2008. They received just $237 million in fiscal year 2021.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) says that despite the decline in payments, the DOJ is still committed to whistleblowers and rewarding them to the fullest extent possible. There were a total of 598 qui tam suits brought in the 2021 fiscal year, approximately 11 new cases per week. There were more than $1.6 billion in settlements and judgments stemming from those cases.

Filing qui tam cases

The reward provisions of the False Claims Act state that if whistleblowers’ original information results in sanctions against an entity they are eligible to receive 15 to 30 percent of the proceeds collected by the government.

The record amount paid out to whistleblowers in FCA cases was in 2014, when the DOJ paid $715 million to whistleblowers and recovered more than $4.4 billion. The amount paid to whistleblowers has been in decline since that year, and hasn’t paid more than $500 million since 2017.

To learn more about how to file a False Claims Act case and the steps you should follow to get started, contact an experienced whistleblower lawyer at Kardell Law Group.