Which U.S. Attorneys’ Offices Brought in the Highest Recoveries in the Past Five Years?
That’s the question we wanted to answer, by reviewing settlements and judgments in False Claims Act cases by each U.S. Attorney’s office. The last time Fraud by the Numbers reported on the U.S. Attorney’s offices, we looked at the full history back to the institution of the modern version of the Act amended in 1986. This time we limited the search to five years of data from fiscal years 2018-2023.
Unfortunately, the Department of Justice does not report on the number of settlements and judgments or the total recoveries per each U.S. Attorney’s Office, nor do the individual offices. So, to discover these numbers, we used information obtained from TAF Coalition’s previous FOIA request as well as available public information.[1] We list below those U.S. Attorney’s Offices that had $200 million or more in total settlements and judgments within the last five fiscal years and jurisdictions that had twenty or more claims. [2]
Making level comparisons between different U.S. Attorney’s offices can be challenging. For example, one unusual large case can bring in a lot of money. Other offices may have more cases that result in smaller recoveries, but that were appropriate uses of government resources to pursue. The way the U.S. Attorney’s Offices are configured also does not necessarily comport with population. For example, New Jersey (population 9.2 million) and Massachusetts (6.9 million) each have one office. But Tennessee (7 million) and North Carolina (10.7 million)—roughly the same sizes—have more than one.
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania obtained far and away the highest number of settlements and judgments, 89. The District of Massachusetts leads with the highest amount of money in settlements and judgments, a total $2.2 billion recovered from 54 cases, including the highest amount from declined cases.
One district which did not collect $200 Million, but is still notable for the outsize amount of recoveries in relation to its population is the District of Vermont. There are fewer than 650,000 people in Vermont, yet the Green Mountain State recovered more than $130 million through five intervened cases—an average recovery of $26 million per case.
The jurisdictions providing at least $200 Million in settlements and judgments or at least twenty settlements in five fiscal years 2018-2023 are below:
Tony Munter heads the Whistleblower Reward Practice at Price Benowitz and Rosie Tomiak is the Public Interest Advocacy Fellow at The Anti-Fraud Coalition.
[1] Due to DOJ’s practices, the research may not have been able to include every case. Some settlements in declined cases are not publicized by a Relator and the DoJ does not always provide a press release in those situations. Also the DoJ keeps data on a per claim basis, but releases press information on a per case basis, making some confusion. TAF urges the DOJ to consider publishing comprehensive data on settlements and judgments from each U.S. Attorney’s Office including the rate of intervention, in the future.
[2] This is arguably unfair to a couple of districts that had significant settlements and judgments but were just under
