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On April 30, 2026, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a False Claims Act (FCA) initiative relating to companies and individuals who analyze publicly available data for signs of potential fraud and file qui tam complaints. These companies and individuals, known as “data miners,” have contributed to a surge of qui tam complaints in recent years, opening up a new front for FCA risk beyond company insiders who have traditionally filed whistleblower complaints. The new initiative appears designed in part to help DOJ identify meritorious data-mining claims brought by relators and encourage data miners to be more judicious in their case filings.
The FOCUS Initiative
Led by DOJ’s Civil Division, the Fraud Oversight through Careful Use of Statistics (FOCUS) initiative seeks to prioritize working with data miners who deploy sophisticated technological capabilities to help identify potential fraud that would otherwise go undetected. This initiative builds on DOJ’s new National Fraud Enforcement Division, announced on April 7, 2026.
Under the FOCUS initiative, data miners will have an opportunity to meet with the Civil Fraud Section to discuss their capabilities and outline “why and how their data signals reliably correlate to fraud.” DOJ will then prioritize working with data miners who have “demonstrated an investment in pre-filing diligence and commitment to analytical rigor, familiarity with program rules, and legally sufficient allegations.” The Civil Division has for years conducted sophisticated internal analysis of government data to identify potential fraud.1 This new initiative is a natural extension of those efforts but also appears designed to separate stronger data-mining claims from those less likely to identify fraudulent activity.
DOJ’s Note of Caution for Date Miners and Continued Support for the Qui Tam Process
In announcing the initiative, DOJ noted that it received 980 qui tam complaints in Fiscal Year 2024, 1,300 in Fiscal Year 2025 and 780 so far in Fiscal Year 2026—on pace for a new record. Notably, since Fiscal Year 2024, data miners have filed more than 45% of all qui tam complaints. DOJ stated that the public plays “an important role in amplifying the Department’s resources and helping to identify potential fraud that might otherwise go undetected,” and DOJ “welcomes the help of American taxpayers to pursue fraud” through qui tam complaints.
DOJ’s initiative aims at least in part to channel the influx of data-mining complaints by providing guidance to prospective relators. In particular, DOJ encourages relators to “utilize only focused data analytics that identify reliable signals with a reasonable correlation to fraud” and to ensure that they understand the relevant federal program requirements. DOJ also warns relators to be “mindful of the heightened pleading standard” for FCA violations under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) and to assess “potential alternative explanations” in order to “articulate how the data, in combination with other available evidence, suggests both scienter and falsity.” While DOJ does not require relators to meet with the Civil Division before filing a qui tam complaint, DOJ has made clear that it will prioritize working with reliable data miners who have demonstrated “pre-filing diligence.”
The Civil Fraud Section’s willingness to work with data miners who demonstrate the value they contribute might lead to an increase in decisions by DOJ to intervene in qui tam suits filed by reliable data miners or to exercise its authority under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) to “oppose” motions seeking to dismiss such suits under the “public disclosure” bar.2 But data miners’ failure to adhere to DOJ guidance regarding analytical rigor and pre-filing diligence might also provide a basis for DOJ—either on its own initiative or at the request of FCA defendants—to exercise its broad dismissal authority under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A).
The announcement of the FOCUS initiative also shows DOJ’s continuing efforts to maximize recoveries under the FCA’s qui tam provision even as courts are considering whether itis constitutional. As noted in a prior client alert, a federal judge in Florida held in 2024 that the qui tam provision violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.3 That case is currently on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, where it was argued in December 2025, and the Third Circuit is considering the question in another case, which was argued in March 2026.4 In the meantime, the FOCUS initiative sends a signal that the DOJ has no intention of slowing down its FCA enforcement nor its support for the qui tam process.
Proactive Steps to Reduce FCA Risk
Companies should consider taking proactive steps to assess and address possible exposure to qui tam complaints by data miners. Companies could proactively use their in-house data capabilities and personnel to analyze publicly available information that external data miners might be able to find. Just as data miners, according to DOJ, are taking advantage of “the most frontier artificial intelligence models to further isolate and discover signals of fraud from large public datasets,” companies themselves could do the same. And to the extent companies do not have such expertise in house, experienced consultants and counsel can assist. Of course, data outliers or anomalies might not reliably indicate fraud and, as courts have recognized, might be consistent with obvious and perfectly legal alternative explanations.5 But proactive compliance will allow entities to identify and investigate these issues to determine their root causes and take any corrective actions that are necessary.
DOJ gives significant credit under its guidelines for voluntary self-disclosure, cooperation and remediation.6 In an analogous example highlighted in a prior client alert, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. entered into a settlement with DOJ to resolve fraud allegations related to scientific research grants. The whistleblower there was reportedly not a company insider but rather an independent molecular biologist who reviews scientific papers online seeking to identify possible errors or misconduct. In that settlement, DOJ emphasized the credit that Dana-Farber received for summarizing voluminous materials relevant to the investigation, voluntarily producing materials, accepting responsibility and implementing remedial measures. These steps likely had a meaningful impact in reducing the monetary penalty, and companies that proactively uncover issues and beat data miners to the punch could be in a similar situation.
Proactive steps and quick action can go a long way in mitigating FCA risk and the most severe FCA penalties. Our team of experienced litigators is available to provide FCA counseling and to defend against FCA investigations and litigation initiated by qui tam relators and the government.
Footnotes
1. See, e.g., Office of Public Affairs | Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton Delivers Remarks at the Federal Bar Association Qui Tam Conference | United States Department of Justice (Feb. 17, 2021).
2. The public disclosure bar poses a potential obstacle to data miners seeking to pursue qui tam suits without DOJ support based solely on information gathered through publicly accessible databases. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Stebbins v. Maraposa Surgical, Inc., 2024 WL 4947274 (3d Cir. Dec. 3, 2024); see also United States ex rel. Relator LLC v. Cardinalli, 2025 WL 4036760, at *1–5 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 15, 2025) (“[T]he Court concludes that the public disclosure bar applies here. All the information concerning the relevant loan was contained in the government’s oversight website, PandemicOversight.gov. … The FCA does not reward mere compilation of public records.”).
3. United States ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, LLC, 751 F. Supp. 3d 1293, 1308 (M.D. Fla. 2024).
4. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Integra Med Analytics LLC v. Providence Health & Services, 854 F. App’x 840, 844 (9th Cir. 2021) (affirming dismissal of a qui tam complaint brought by a data miner because allegations of outlier billing for certain health conditions did “not rule out an obvious alternative explanation” that the hospital system, having hired consultants to assist with Medicare reimbursement, “was simply ahead of others in its industry”); United States ex rel. Integra Med Analytics LLC v. Baylor Scott & White Health, 816 F. App’x 892, 898 (5th Cir. 2020) (same).
5. DOJ, Justice Manual § 4-4.112.
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