Date: February 23, 2024
The National Law Review and other media reported on the Federal Bar Association's annual Qui Tam Conference. The 2024 conference included panels covering topics such as damages and government intervention in False Claims Act cases — and a keynote speech from a Department of Justice representative who announced a record-breaking year for the DOJ's FCA enforcement efforts. TELG's Scott Oswald helped organize the conference.
[EXCERPT]
DOJ Announces Its FCA Enforcement Priorities for 2024: Cybersecurity, COVID-19, and Healthcare Fraud
On February 22, 2024, Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton delivered remarks at the 2024 Federal Bar Association’s Qui Tam Conference. During those remarks, Boynton announced another record year for DOJ’s False Claims Act enforcement efforts. Specifically, Boynton announced, in 2023 alone, nearly $2.7 billion was recovered under the FCA and included the resolution of 543 matters — the most FCA matters ever resolved by DOJ in a single year. Boynton further announced that, in 2023, DOJ began investigating 712 qui tam lawsuits (the third highest number ever) and opened, on its own, 500 new FCA matters (an all-time record high). He also took the opportunity to announce DOJ’s FCA enforcement priorities for 2024.
Enforcement Priorities
Moving into 2024, Boynton signaled that DOJ has no intention of slowing its efforts down and announced three primary categories of FCA enforcement priorities:
- Cybersecurity fraud
- COVID-19 fraud
- Healthcare fraud
>> View full story on The National Law Review
[ADDITIONAL COVERAGE]
After Record-Breaking Year, Qui Tam Conference Stresses DOJ Efficiency in False Claims Act Matters
From Law.com (February 23, 2024)
The Federal Bar Association’s seventh annual qui tam conference focused on the government’s involvement in False Claims Act cases following a record-breaking year for settlements and judgments obtained by the Department of Justice.
The two-day conference featured panels that touched on each stage of the qui tam process, from vetting whistleblowers to calculating damages and what developments from 2023 are influencing how attorneys are approaching those steps.
Brian Boynton, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s civil division, said the government’s involvement in FCA suits has continued to grow, with the DOJ in fiscal year 2023 recovering almost $2.7 billion from 543 FCA settlements and judgments, more than any other year to date and a 54% year-over-year increase. For the fourth time in the past decade, he said, the department began investigating more than 700 qui tam lawsuits in a year.
Extending Secrecy in Whistleblower Probes Divides DOJ, Judges
From Bloomberg Law (March 4, 2024)
Courts are pushing back on the Justice Department’s practice of concealing whistleblower-generated investigations for years, exposing tension over a law that some DOJ officials say judges fail to grasp.
The conflict spilled into public view recently when prosecutors from two of the most active districts for attracting whistleblower complaints of corporate fraud — Philadelphia and Boston — said that federal judges are rushing the department to lift seals on the cases because they don’t understand the complexities of the Civil War-era False Claims Act.
“Everything takes a long time. The judges really don’t get that,” said Joshua Levy, the acting US attorney for Massachusetts, during a Feb. 23 legal conference. “I’ve actually asked for an opportunity to brief the judges on this issue, and they don’t really want to hear from me.”
