False Claims Act

What the government pursued,in its own words.

Every Department of Justice release announcing a False Claims Act matter on a federal contract since 2009, searchable in full text, each with the fraud scheme its text supports, how it was resolved, the amount announced, and the office that announced it.

See which schemes the Department presses and where, find the cases that look like your own exposure, and read the Act itself, from treble damages to the relator's share, cited to the statute.

955

Department of Justice releases

2009 TO TODAY

813

Matters behind them

EACH COUNTED ONCE

$7.4B

Announced in settlements and judgments

ACROSS 662 MATTERS STATING A FIGURE

45%

Name a whistleblower

430 QUI TAM RELEASES

Browse

Every release, with the facts a contractor needs

Filter to one scheme and the list narrows to the matters that look like it. The cybersecurity representations scheme, for one, carries 35 releases, the first in 2022. Open a release for its resolution, amount, agencies and the Department's own words, with a link to the source.

The releases in the video are real, read from the corpus on November 5, 2026, with each contractor's name replaced by a bracketed description, and each is linked to its source on justice.gov.

01

Search the full text

Titles, defendants and the full body of every release, with the settlement agreements and complaints the Department attaches one click away.

02

Filter by what was alleged

14 fraud schemes read from each release's own words, from defective pricing and cost mischarging to small business fraud and cybersecurity.

03

One matter, counted once

A settlement the Civil Division and a U.S. Attorney's Office both announce is grouped into one matter, so a total never counts it twice.

04

The facts on every row

The resolution, the amount the headline states, whether a whistleblower brought it, the agencies named and the Department of War components in the text.

Insights

The enforcement record, counted

955 releases announcing 813 matters, and $7.4 billion announced across the 662 that state a figure. The Insights tab breaks them down by year, scheme, agency, resolution and announcing office, ranks the largest resolutions, and sets the Department's own fiscal year recovery statistics beside them.

Try it

What the Department alleged, year by year

The tab's own chart, drawn live from the corpus. Each row is a fraud scheme, each column a year, and each cell the matters first announced that year whose releases carry the scheme. Hover any cell for its count.
Try it

Where the announcements come from

700 of the 955 releases were announced by one of 77 U.S. Attorney's Offices. Hover a state for its districts, click it to list them, and pick a scheme to redraw the map for that scheme alone.
Guide

The Act, cited to the statute

The Guide transcribes 31 U.S.C. 3729 through 3733, the Department's adjusted penalty table and the FAR sections behind a contractor's duty to disclose, with every point linked to the provision it comes from.

What the False Claims Act reaches

Seven kinds of conduct create liability, and the two that matter most to a contractor are presenting a false claim for payment and making a false record or statement that is material to one. The Act also reaches the reverse case, where money owed to the government is concealed rather than claimed from it.

Knowing, and material: the two words that decide most cases

The Act does not require an intent to defraud. Deliberate ignorance and reckless disregard are enough, which is why a compliance system that avoided asking a question is not a defense. Materiality is the second gate, and it asks whether the falsehood had a natural tendency to influence payment.

Treble damages, and a penalty on every claim

Liability is three times the government's damages plus a civil penalty for each false claim, and the penalty is adjusted for inflation by Department of Justice regulation rather than by the figures printed in the statute. A defendant that reports itself within 30 days, cooperates fully and beats any investigation can have the multiple reduced to two.

How a whistleblower case is brought, and what happens under seal

A private person may sue in the name of the United States. The complaint is filed in camera, stays under seal for at least 60 days, and is not served on the defendant until the court orders it. In that window the government decides whether to take the case over.

What the whistleblower receives

The share depends on whether the government took the case over: 15 to 25 percent when it did, 25 to 30 percent when it declined and the relator carried the case alone. A relator who planned the violation can have the share cut, and one convicted of it gets nothing.

Protection against retaliation

An employee, contractor or agent who is fired, demoted, suspended, threatened, harassed or otherwise discriminated against for lawful acts in furtherance of a case, or for efforts to stop a violation, is entitled to be made whole. The relief is specified in the statute and includes double back pay.

The public disclosure bar and the original source

A court dismisses a qui tam case whose allegations were already publicly disclosed in a federal proceeding, a federal report or audit, or the news media, unless the government opposes dismissal or the relator is an original source. Several other bars close off cases the Act was never meant to carry.

The clocks, the burden, and what a criminal conviction settles

Two limitation periods run in parallel and the later one controls, subject to a ten year outer wall. The United States proves every element, damages included, by a preponderance of the evidence, and a criminal fraud judgment estops the defendant from denying the same conduct here.

Civil investigative demands: the government's pre-suit tool

Before it sues, and before it elects on a sealed qui tam case, the Attorney General may compel documents, written answers and oral testimony by civil investigative demand. A contractor's first sight of a False Claims Act investigation is very often one of these.

The contractor's own duty to disclose a violation

A covered contractor must disclose credible evidence of a False Claims Act violation in writing to the agency Inspector General, with a copy to the contracting officer. A knowing failure by a principal to disclose is itself a cause for suspension and debarment, and it stays one until three years after final payment.

Where the Act came from, and the four amendments that shaped it

The Act dates from the Civil War, was weakened in 1943, and was rebuilt in 1986 into the statute that produces the settlements on this tab. Two further rounds in 2009 and 2010 widened it again and are why the current text reaches subcontractor claims and retained overpayments.

Where the numbers on this tab come from

Two different things are counted here and they are never mixed. The Browse and Insights counts are announcements the Department of Justice published. The recovery figures are the Department's own fiscal year Fraud Statistics, which count settlements and judgments across every matter whether it was announced or not.

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The False Claims Act tab

One place to read the enforcement record against your own work: the schemes the Department presses, the agencies and offices behind them, and what the Act says, next to the regulations, the DCAA guidance and the case law.

Browse

Every release, newest first, with the facets a contractor asks for: scheme, agency, resolution, qui tam, and the announcing office.

Insights

What gets alleged, the dollars behind each scheme, who announces it, the largest resolutions, and the Department's own fiscal year recovery statistics.

District map

The U.S. Attorney's Offices behind the announcements, state by state, filterable to one scheme and linked to each office.

Guide

The Act itself: liability, knowledge and materiality, damages and penalties, qui tam procedure, the relator's share and the contractor's duty to disclose.

FAQ

False Claims Act research,
answered.

Where the releases come from, how each is read, what the figures count, and what the free plan opens.

From the Department of Justice's own press release stream on justice.gov, read back to January 2009. A release is kept when it announces a False Claims Act matter with a federal procurement nexus at any agency: a contract, a subcontract, a grant or a program a contractor bills. Announcements about the Department itself, such as annual summaries or personnel news, are left out.

From the release's own text, through a closed vocabulary of schemes applied when the corpus is built. It is not a classification the Department publishes, and a release can carry several schemes, so the scheme counts add up to more than the releases. A release whose text supports none of them is counted as matching no scheme rather than guessed at.

No. They are the amounts each release's headline announces, summed once per matter. A headline often rounds down and some matters state no figure at all. What the government actually recovers each fiscal year is the Department's own Fraud Statistics, which the Insights tab shows beside the corpus and never mixes with it.

Every release a U.S. Attorney's Office announced, on the office's state. 700 of the 955 releases carry a district office; the rest were announced only from Washington, by the Civil Division and the other Main Justice components. A release two offices announce is counted under both.

Yes. A free account browses every release, opens the Insights and the Guide, and searches and filters the corpus. The page you are reading shows the Insights charts without an account; listing a state's headlines from the map needs one.

No. The tab is a research record of what the Department of Justice announced and a guide to the text of the statute. Whether conduct creates False Claims Act liability, and whether and how to make a disclosure, turns on the facts; consult qualified counsel.

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Know what gets pursued

Search every procurement False Claims Act release, see the schemes and offices behind them, and read the Act cited to the statute. The False Claims Act tab is included in the free plan.

About this page, its charts and its animations

  • The charts and figures on this page are the False Claims Act tab's own, read from the corpus on November 5, 2026. The tab reads the corpus again on every visit, and it grows as the Department publishes.
  • The releases, defendants and amounts shown are as the Department of Justice announced them. An announced settlement resolves allegations: unless a release says otherwise, it is not a finding or an admission of liability, and a complaint filed is an allegation the defendant may contest.
  • The fraud schemes are read from each release's text through a closed vocabulary. They are not a classification the Department publishes, and a release can carry several.
  • Amounts are the figures each headline states, counted once per matter. They are not what the government recovered, which is the Department's own Fraud Statistics.
  • Nothing on this page is legal advice. False Claims Act liability, disclosure and settlement turn on the facts of each matter; consult qualified counsel before relying on them.