Thanks to a law championed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the federal government recovered $2.2 billion lost to fraud in 2022 in 351 cases – the second highest number of individual settlements and judgements in history. Whistleblowers, who Grassley has fought for and protected throughout his tenure in the Senate, accounted for $1.9 billion of those recoveries. Since it was modernized and strengthened by Grassley in 1986, the False Claims Act has now been responsible for more than $72 billion in recoveries and likely deterred further significant fraudulent use and abuse of taxpayer money.
“The False Claims Act is the gift that keeps on giving. It can be difficult to quantify the value of whistleblowers, but in this case, they have held the government accountable and helped save taxpayers over $72 billion and almost certainly deterred even more. Whistleblowers go out of their way to root out fraudulent and abusive uses of your hard-earned tax dollars. They’re absolutely essential to fighting fraud, and the Justice Department ought to continue empowering them to prevent swindlers from getting away with defrauding American taxpayers,” Grassley said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced the Fiscal Year 2022 recoveries, crediting Grassley’s law as a key tool for tackling fraud.
In 1986, Grassley led a successful effort to update the False Claims Act, which allows the government to recover taxpayer dollars from entities that defrauded federal agencies. A key provision in that update, known as qui tam, allows whistleblowers to bring lawsuits against alleged fraudsters on behalf of the government and share in any recoveries. The law has been so successful that other agencies, such as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), have adopted similar programs that incentivize whistleblowers who shine a light on fraud by allowing them to share in the recoveries.
Despite the False Claims Act’s overwhelming success, courts and defendants are twisting a 2016 Supreme Court ruling to mischaracterize and weaken the law. Grassley, a long-time advocate for government oversight and accountability, has continued leveraging his senior position in the Senate to root out fraud, waste and abuse, including by protecting and strengthening the False Claims Act. Last Congress, Grassley led a bipartisan group of senators in introducing two bills to protect and bolster the government’s most potent tool to fight fraud: False Claims Amendments Act and the Administrative False Claims Act.
More information on False Claims Act settlements and judgments from 2022 can be found on the DOJ’s website by clicking HERE.
