Taxpayers Recovered $2.979 Billion from Whistleblower Disclosures

The fraud recovery statistics published by the U.S. Department of Justice continue to demonstrate that the False Claims Act is the most effective U.S. whistleblower protection and fraud recovery law.

In 2013 whistleblowers used the False Claims Act provisions to provide original information to the United States government that resulted in the taxpayers recovering $2.979 billion from fraudsters. This number does not include numerous employment remedies that the whistleblowers were able to personally recover under the False Claims Act, including double back pay and attorney fees. All of the damages, fees, and awards payable to whistleblowers under the False Claims Act are paid directly by the fraudster, not by the government.

According to the Justice Department, since the False Claims Act was amended in 1986 the U.S. government has recovered a total of $27.2 billion in recoveries based strictly on the original information provided by whistleblower disclosures under the False Claims Act. During the same time period, the U.S. government was only able to recover $11.7 billion from fraudsters without the help of whistleblowers.

By incentivizing and protecting whistleblowers, the False Claims Act has doubled the recoveries obtained by the United States from fraudsters. Even more importantly, the law has provided whistleblowers with an effective law to protect their jobs and careers after they did the right thing and reported fraud against the taxpayers. Link: DOJ False Claims Act statistics