Missed It by That Much—DOJ Eeks in Another $852 Million, Perhaps Just over the Wire

As we reported earlier this week, it was not exactly a record year for government FCA enforcement, with the overall take at $1.92 billion and the single largest recovery pegged at $216 million.

That is, until three new settlements were announced on October 1—the first day of FY2019—totaling just under $852 million (not including portions of the settlements directly allocated to state claims). The timing of the press releases for the settlements suggests that DOJ was working hard to include these figures in FY2018, which closed on September 30. Including the settlements in the 2018 stats would bring the overall figure closer to, but still under, $3 billion.

Since we report our statistics based on the date of the DOJ press release (we often do not have access to the actual settlement documents), we will keep to our methodology and count these settlements in FY2019. Color us not particularly surprised, however, if DOJ claims 2018 credit for these recoveries when it releases its own official stats later this year, at which time we may revisit this call.

So, starting October 2, we reset our recoveries "clock," but the FY2018 data remains available for our readers to view just by selecting "FY2018" in the dropdown on the statistics pages.

© Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP 2018 All Rights Reserved. This blog post is intended to be a general summary of the law and does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with counsel to determine applicable legal requirements in a specific fact situation.