Tag: DOJ

DOJ Looks to Incentivize Whistleblowers with New Pilot Program


Robyn N. Burrows ●

On March 7, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced that the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) is designing and launching a pilot program to pay monetary rewards to whistleblowers who report significant corporate or financial misconduct. The pilot program, which will roll out later this year, is intended to encourage individuals to report misconduct and for companies to further invest in their internal compliance and reporting systems.

Several agencies have already established similar programs that reward whistleblowers financially, including the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”). Those programs, however, are limited in scope to each agency, resulting in what Monaco referred to as a “patchwork quilt” that does not address the full range of corporate and financial misconduct. The new pilot program is intended to fill these gaps.

Key Aspects of Pilot Program

Over the next 90 days, DOJ will be engaging in a “policy sprint” to gather information, consult with stakeholders, and design the pilot program. DOJ’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (“MLARS”) will lead the development and administration of the program.

The program’s core concepts will include the following:

  • Award Thresholds: DOJ expects to establish a monetary threshold to focus its resources on the most significant cases. Both the SEC and CFTC whistleblower programs limit rewards to cases in which the agency orders sanctions of one million dollars or more. DOJ may end up adopting a similar threshold.
  • Victim Compensation: Whistleblowers will only receive payment after all victims have been compensated.
  • “First in the Door”: Eligibility is limited to whistleblowers who provide truthful information not already known to the government. The information cannot be in response to any government inquiry, pre-existing reporting obligation, or imminent threat of disclosure. As Monaco emphasized, “you have to tell us something we didn’t already know.”
  • No Criminal Involvement: Whistleblowers cannot be involved in the criminal activity itself.
  • No Existing Incentive Programs: The program applies only in cases where there is no existing disclosure incentive, including qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act or another federal whistleblower program.

Enforcement Priorities

Although DOJ seeks information about any violation of federal law, Monaco clarified that the government is primarily interested in:

  • Criminal abuses of the U.S. financial system;
  • Foreign corruption cases outside the SEC’s jurisdiction; and
  • Domestic corruption cases, especially involving illegal corporate payments to government officials.

What to Expect from the Pilot Program?

Increase in voluntary disclosures

  • The new whistleblower program builds on DOJ’s prior efforts to strengthen corporate enforcement by encouraging voluntary disclosures. With the new pilot program offering monetary rewards to those “first in the door,” companies assessing whether to self-report potential misconduct must consider whether a whistleblower might get to DOJ first (thereby preventing the company from reaping the benefits of a voluntary disclosure). This may encourage companies to self-report misconduct earlier and more often. As Monaco stated, “[O]ur message to whistleblowers is clear: the Department of Justice wants to hear from you. And to those considering a voluntary self-disclosure, our message is equally clear: knock on our door before we knock on yours.”

More referrals to DOJ—and potentially fewer internal whistleblower reports

  • With the prospect of potentially significant financial rewards, we can expect more employees to report wrongdoing directly to DOJ, rather than going through corporate whistleblower channels. Companies should therefore ensure employees are aware of and have easy access to whistleblower hotlines to encourage internal reporting.

Focus on non-public companies

  • One of the “gaps” DOJ seeks to fill with the whistleblower program is to target foreign corruption cases outside the jurisdiction of the SEC, which already has its own whistleblower program. Thus, DOJ is likely to focus on suspected violations by non-public corporations.

We expect more information on program details and implementation over the coming months and will follow up with further updates.

More Cases and Expanded Data Analytics: A Closer Look at DOJ’s FY 2023 False Claims Act Statistics


Dominique L. Casimir, Luke W. Meier, and Oliver E. Jury ●


The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently announced its statistics for False Claims Act (“FCA”) FY 2023 settlements and judgments. DOJ recovered $2.68 billion in FY 2023; as usual, the majority of these recoveries (nearly 70 percent, or $1.8B) came from the healthcare industry. DOJ continues to make use of data analytics to inform its enforcement activity.

Background

Comparing year-to-year variance in the volume of DOJ’s FCA recoveries provides only marginal utility. More telling is the rapid expansion of the non-qui tam matters opened during the past two years. In FY 2022, DOJ opened 305 non-qui tam matters, representing approximately 186 percent of its prior ten-year average (164). In FY 2023, this increase continued, with DOJ opening 500 non-qui tam matters—305 percent of the ten-year average over FY 12–21.

Continue reading “More Cases and Expanded Data Analytics: A Closer Look at DOJ’s FY 2023 False Claims Act Statistics”

Beyond DOJ’s Blockbuster Year in FCA Recoveries, Whistleblower Activity and Investigations Continue

Elizabeth N. Jochum and Jennifer A. Short

Jennifer A. Short headshot image


The attention-grabbing headline from the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) annually released statistics on False Claims Act (“FCA”) settlements and judgments is that the government recovered more than $5.6 billion from FCA cases in fiscal year (“FY”) 2021. While this is the second largest annual recovery in FCA history and the largest since 2014, procurement fraud cases represented a substantially smaller percentage of the total recoveries than in years past. Healthcare resolutions dominated, accounting for more than five billion of the $5.6 billion in settlements and judgments. In previous years, healthcare matters have accounted for closer to two-thirds of the total recoveries, making last year’s outsized healthcare figure—driven by the blockbuster opioid settlements of late 2020[1]—an outlier.

Beyond the top-line dollar figures, the report shows that FCA activity continues at a healthy, if not fully robust, pace. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact qui tam filings; the number of new whistleblower suits dropped to 598 in FY 2021, a ten-year low. The number of DOJ-initiated matters remains higher than the near-term average, particularly in healthcare, but also in Department of Defense (“DOD”)-related cases. Contractors, healthcare providers, and others—especially those who received federal funding through pandemic aid programs—can anticipate that FCA investigations and resolutions will play out over the next several years.

Continue reading “Beyond DOJ’s Blockbuster Year in FCA Recoveries, Whistleblower Activity and Investigations Continue”

Department of Justice to Prioritize Cybersecurity Fraud through New Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative

Sharon R. Klein, Jennifer A. Short, and Robyn N. Burrows

Sharon R. Klein headshot image
Jennifer A. Short headshot image


On October 6, 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced a new Civil Cyber-Fraud Initiative to pursue cybersecurity fraud matters using the enforcement mechanisms of the False Claims Act (“FCA”).

This initiative follows DOJ’s four-month effort to review its cybersecurity strategy and reflects the government’s increased focus on contractor data security. Led by the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section—i.e., the DOJ Section responsible for investigating and litigating FCA matters—the initiative targets government contractors and grant recipients that “put U.S. information or systems at risk” by “knowingly”:

      • providing deficient cybersecurity products or services;
      • misrepresenting the company’s cybersecurity practices or protocols; or
      • violating their obligations to monitor and report cybersecurity incidents and breaches.

We discuss the cybersecurity landscape preceding the new initiative, possible impacts and focus areas of the initiative, and how contractors should prepare for potential enforcement.

To read the full client alert, please visit our website. 

Blank Rome Represents Qbase LLC in Successful GAO Protest of DOJ Award Bid for IT Support Contract

A Blank Rome government contracts team obtained relief for Qbase LLC in a protest before the U.S. Government Accountability Office (“GAO”) involving the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) failure to award a $4.5 billion IT support contract to Qbase, a computer-related services and consulting provider.

The GAO concluded that the DOJ’s determination of which contract proposal provided the best value to the government was unreasonable because the DOJ failed to meaningfully consider the price of the proposals. Moreover, in its assessment of the proposals’ technical merit, instead of performing the required qualitative assessment of each offeror’s technical proposal, the DOJ unreasonably based its determination on a mechanical comparison of adjectival ratings (“very good,” “satisfactory”) between the offerors. In its decision, the GAO stated, “In sum, the agency’s best-value determination is unreasonable because the agency performed a mechanical tradeoff analysis that failed to meaningfully consider price and resulted in the exclusion of technically acceptable proposals from consideration for award.” The GAO sustained the protest, recommended that the DOJ conduct a new best-value analysis giving proper weight to pricing, and awarded Qbase its attorneys’ fees.

For more information, please read GAO Says DOJ Unfairly Assessed Bids On $4.5B IT Deal (Law360, November 20, 2020).

The Blank Rome team included Richard J. Conway, Adam Proujansky, and Michael J. Slattery.

Seventh Circuit Weighs in on Government Dismissal Authority under the FCA

Sara N. Gerber

The Seventh Circuit’s recent decision in U.S. ex rel. CIMZNHCA, LLC v. UCB, Inc. widens the Circuit split on the standard of review applicable when the government seeks to dismiss a qui tam case under the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The FCA, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A), provides that the government may dismiss a qui tam case without the relator’s consent if the relator is given notice and an opportunity to be heard. Although the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has increasingly exercised its dismissal authority since issuance of the “Granston Memo” in January 2018—which encouraged DOJ attorneys to consider seeking dismissal if in the best interests of the government—as the Seventh Circuit noted, the FCA does not indicate “how, if at all,” courts are “to review the government’s decision to dismiss.” Circuit Courts have taken divergent views in answering that question.

Circuit Court Decisions

The D.C. Circuit, in Swift v. United States, 318 F.3d 250 (D.C. Cir. 2003), decided that the government has an “unfettered right” to dismiss based on the Executive branch’s “historical prerogative” to decline to prosecute a case. The Ninth Circuit, in U.S. ex rel. Sequoia Orange Co. v. Baird-Neece Packing Corp., 151 F.3d 1139 (9th Cir. 1998), and the Tenth Circuit in Ridenour v. KaiserHill Co., LLC, 397 F.3d 925 (10th Cir. 2005), imposed a rational-relation test: the government must establish a rational relation between dismissal and the accomplishment of a valid government purpose. If the government satisfies this test, the burden shifts to relator to show that dismissal is fraudulent, arbitrary and capricious, or illegal. So far, the Supreme Court has declined to step in, denying certiorari in April 2020 in United States ex rel. Schneider v. JP Morgan Chase Bank on the question of whether the government’s dismissal decisions constitute an “unreviewable exercise of prosecutorial authority.” Now, however, the Seventh Circuit has articulated a new standard, relying on Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a) governing voluntary dismissals by plaintiffs. Continue reading “Seventh Circuit Weighs in on Government Dismissal Authority under the FCA”

What Contractors Should Know about DOJ’s Revised Guidance on Evaluations of Corporate Compliance

Brian S. Gocial and Stephanie M. Harden

Stephanie Harden's Headshot Photo

As government contractors know well, a robust compliance program can be critical—both in preventing, detecting, and resolving compliance problems and in working with agencies and/or the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) to resolve compliance issues when they arise. Though DOJ has previously issued guidance on how it evaluates corporate compliance programs, on April 30, 2019, it greatly expanded upon its earlier guidance with a lengthy new guidance document. The document is notable for its emphasis not just on the design of compliance programs, but also on their effectiveness in practice. The document is a useful benchmark for contractors to evaluate their compliance programs, as well as to demonstrate their affirmative responsibility to agencies when facing agency-level investigations.

The guidance document focuses on three central questions:

    1. Is the corporation’s compliance program well designed?
    2. Is the corporation’s compliance program implemented effectively?
    3. Does the compliance program actually work in practice?

The following outline provides a summary of the various factors DOJ discusses in connection with each of these questions—and more information on each topic can be found here.

Contractors should assess how their own compliance programs measure up against these factors: Continue reading “What Contractors Should Know about DOJ’s Revised Guidance on Evaluations of Corporate Compliance”

What DOJ’s FY 2018 False Claims Act Recovery Statistics Reveal

Michael J. Slattery

The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) recently released its annual fraud statistics for FY 2018. The statistics reveal that False Claims Act (“FCA”) recoveries reached their lowest level since FY 2009. However, although total recoveries are down, this decrease is more a by-product of a down year in major health care and financial services recoveries, and we think it is too early to view these numbers as reflecting a sea change in enforcement.

The annual statistics published by DOJ on December 21, 2018 demonstrate that the Government recovered a total of $2.88 billion in qui tam and non-qui tam FCA judgments and settlements in FY 2018. This represents the lowest amount recovered since FY 2009, when the Government recovered nearly $2.47 billion. It also demonstrates a short-term trend in declining recovery. FY 2018 was the second straight year in which fraud recovery decreased. However, recent comments by the Trump administration’s nominee for U.S Attorney General likely indicate that no affirmative decision to decrease FCA actions will occur in the next few years. Continue reading “What DOJ’s FY 2018 False Claims Act Recovery Statistics Reveal”

Breaking Camp(ie): Supreme Court Sends Gilead FCA Case Back for Likely Dismissal, Postponing Escobar’s Return

Justin A. Chiarodo and Stephanie M. Harden

Stephanie Harden's Headshot Photo

The Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) bombshell statement last month that it would seek dismissal of the Gilead False Claims Act (“FCA”) suit—a qui tam suit alleging misrepresentations and concealments regarding active ingredient sources and quality for HIV medications—surprised many in the government contracts community. Though DOJ had signaled earlier last year in the so-called “Granston memo” that it may seek dismissal of certain FCA cases, the fact that DOJ sought to do so while a case was on appeal to the Supreme Court—and without consulting relators—was unexpected.

Continue reading “Breaking Camp(ie): Supreme Court Sends Gilead FCA Case Back for Likely Dismissal, Postponing Escobar’s Return”

Another Banner Year for False Claims Act Recoveries Signals More of the Same for 2018

Justin A. Chiarodo and Sara N. Gerber

The Department of Justice (“DOJ”) reported $3.7 billion in False Claims Act (“FCA”) settlements and judgments for fiscal year 2017, the 8th straight year of 3-plus-billion-dollar recoveries and 700-plus new cases filed. Healthcare, mortgage, and procurement fraud once again dominated recoveries. This article analyzes DOJ’s FCA statistics, and includes our predictions for continued strong enforcement in 2018. Continue reading “Another Banner Year for False Claims Act Recoveries Signals More of the Same for 2018”