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$5B in government recoveries on false claims cases

Published: December 4, 2012 Comment on this article

In collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services, the Justice Department recovered $3 billion in health care fraud cases under the False Claims Act in the past year. The government recovered $1.4 billion in housing and mortgage-related cases, including $900 million of a $25 billion settlement between the nation's five largest mortgage servicers and federal and state governments.

West praised private-sector whistle-blowers who come forward to report fraud by government contractors to investigators "often at great personal risk," such as retaliation from their employer or even loss of their job. Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers can share with the government in any recovery of money based upon their disclosures. Traditionally, the Justice Department steps into about a quarter of the cases brought by whistle-blowers, who filed nearly 650 such cases in the past year. Of the $5 billion recovered, $3.3 billion stemmed from whistle-blower cases.

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