Grassley Applauds Eleventh Circuit Ruling Upholding Whistleblowers’ Ability to Help Fight Government Fraud

Grassley Applauds Eleventh Circuit Ruling Upholding Whistleblowers' Ability to Help Fight Government Fraud

BUTLER COUNTY, IOWA - U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and author of the legislation that strengthened the False Claims Act, welcomed today's ruling from the United States Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the constitutionality of the law's qui tam provision, which allows whistleblowers to bring lawsuits against fraudsters on behalf of the federal government and share in any recoveries. Grassley submitted an amicus brief to the Eleventh Circuit last year backing the qui tam provision.

"The Eleventh Circuit just delivered a major win for whistleblowers and taxpayers alike. The False Claims Act is the government's greatest fraud-fighting tool, and patriotic whistleblowers who use the qui tam provision often contribute to the lion's share of recoveries. It's not an exaggeration to say this court decision saves billions of taxpayer dollars from being lost to fraud and deters would-be fraudsters from wasting even more."

Background:
Grassley in 1986 updated the False Claims Act, the law enabling the government to recover taxpayer dollars from entities that defrauded federal agencies. A key provision in that update, qui tam, allows whistleblowers to sue alleged fraudsters on behalf of the government and share in the recoveries. Since Grassley's 1986 updates, the False Claims Act has recovered approximately $85 billion in taxpayer dollars.

Fiscal year 2025 (FY2025) marked the largest single-year recovery in the history of the False Claims Act, with the government recouping over $6.8 billion in fraudulent payments. Whistleblowers helped recover over $5.3 billion of that sum.

Whistleblowers filed 1,297 qui tam lawsuits in FY2025, the highest number in a single year.

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