2016 was another active year in the land of False Claims Act enforcement. The U.S. Department of Justice continued to set recovery records and turned its eye more keenly on enforcement of individuals. We heard from the Supreme Court not once, but twice, on FCA issues. Per-claim penalties increased as of Aug. 1, opening the door for higher recoveries and bigger whistleblower awards in the future. And courts across the country continued to wrestle with a host of FCA issues from statistical sampling, Rule 9(b)’s pleading requirements, and the public disclosure bar. Here’s a closer look at some of the FCA highlights from 2016.

1. DOJ Collects Big False Claims Act Dollars — Again -

It was another banner year for the DOJ's False Claims Act collections. The department announced in December that it had obtained more than $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments related to the FCA for fiscal year 2016, making it the third-highest year in history for FCA recoveries and bringing the DOJ’s annual average recoveries to almost $4 billion since 2009. The largest recoveries came from industries that continue to be the hallmark of the department’s FCA focus: $2.5 billion from the health care industry (drug and medical device companies, hospitals, nursing homes, labs, and physicians) and $1.7 billion from the financial industry, primarily from housing and mortgage fraud. The DOJ also identified procurement fraud as a significant area of recovery and specifically highlighted an $86 million settlement to resolve claims relating to the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion. Not surprisingly, 2016 was also a big year for whistleblowers who filed 702 qui tam suits last year. Of the $4.7 billion in recoveries obtained by the DOJ, over half, $2.9 billion, related to lawsuits filed by whistleblowers.

Originally published in Law360 on January 31, 2017.