Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund: False Claims Act Leads Record Fraud Recovery at DoJ
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Justice Department collected a record $24.7 billion in civil and criminal actions in Fiscal Year 2014, more than three times the $8 billion collected in FY 2013.
The largest civil collections made by the U.S. Department of Justice were due to whistleblower-initiated cases filed under the False Claims Act.
Among the biggest settlements in 2014 were banks and mortgage companies paying billions to resolve civil cases stemming from the 2008 financial crisis, pharmaceutical companies settling marketing and pricing fraud charges, and companies paying criminal penalties for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
Patrick Burns, Co-Executive Director of Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund (TAFEF) in Washington, D.C., notes that whistleblower-initiated False Claims Act recoveries in FY 2014 topped $5 billion.
"Whistleblower programs are the most effective tool government has to fight fraud," says Burns, "which is why we see their expansion across government.
"The next step is to move beyond accounting, to true accountability," says Burns. "Fraud is not a victimless crime and it is not an accident. We need to begin holding key executives accountable by either jailing them or excluding them from management positions in corporations doing business with the U.S. Government."
The 10 largest fraud cases settled under the False Claims Act in 2014 were:
- Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries - $2.2 billion >> Read More.
- Bank of America and its former and current subsidiaries, including Countrywide Financial Corporation and Merrill Lynch - $1 billion >> Read More.
- JPMorgan Chase - $614 million >> Read More.
- U.S. Bank - $200 million >> Read More.
- Endo Health Solutions Inc. - $192.7 million >> Read More.
- Amedisys Inc. - $150 million >> Read More.
- Omnicare Inc. - $124.4 million >> Read More.
- Community Health Systems Inc. (CHS) - $98.15 million >> Read More.
- Dr. Wasfi Makar, a Florida oncologist - $89.6 million >> Read More.
- Halifax Hospital - $85 million >> Read More.
A listing of all Fiscal Year 2014 False Claims Act settlements can be found here.
SOURCE Taxpayers Against Fraud Education Fund
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