FY 2025 DOJ enforcement priorities: Healthcare, trade, and cyber in focus

In remarks delivered at the ACI’s 13^th Advanced Forum on False Claims and Qui Tam Enforcement, Deputy Assistant Attorney for the Civil Division Brenna Jenny discussed the DOJ’s FY 2025 FCA recovery statistics, highlighting the DOJ’s ongoing efforts to find and fight fraud on the government. 

Jenny commented on DOJ’s enforcement agenda with respect to healthcare, trade, and cybersecurity, as well as a renewed emphasis on dismissing meritless qui tams. Companies should anticipate intensified scrutiny of managed care risk adjustment, pharmaceutical pricing conduct, medical device quality, duty evasion, and contractors’ discrimination risks, backed by growing whistleblower activity. 

Summarizing DOJ’s record-breaking False Claims Act recoveries for FY 2025, Jenny focused on three key areas: healthcare fraud, trade fraud, and cyber fraud. 

Healthcare enforcement priorities

Healthcare remained the lion’s share of False Claims Act recoveries and Jenny identified three specific enforcement priorities that were part of DOJ’s 2025 efforts. The first is managed care. In particular, DOJ has its sights set on “one-way” chart reviews, unsupported diagnostic coding, and failure to correct known invalid diagnoses. Jenny warned of increased chart reviews and audits by CMS, and overpayment recovery by HHS. In addition to schemes involving manipulation of diagnostic coding, Jenny noted that DOJ is investigating allegations of managed care organizations paying kickbacks to doctors, patients, and others in exchange for the referral or enrollment of patients, as well as discrimination against sicker patients and denying or limiting necessary patient care. 

The second healthcare-related focus area Jenny highlighted was the price of prescription drugs. As part of the Trump administration’s efforts to bring down drug prices, DOJ is actively investigating allegations of fraudulent conduct by the pharmaceutical industry that props up drug prices. Examples include inflation of average wholesale prices, patient copay assistance paired with steady price hikes, and speaker programs and similar conduct that amount to unlawful kickbacks. 

Jenny also emphasized DOJ’s enforcement related to unnecessary services and substandard care, with a particular focus on medical devices. She highlighted a $38.5 million settlement based on allegations of fraudulent marketing of prosthetic implants despite early knowledge of premature failure risks. She acknowledged that scienter plays an important role in analyzing these types of claims, warning that failing to take steps in the face of potential efficacy and safety concerns will be closely scrutinized. Jenny also highlighted a particular area of focus involving skin substitutes. She noted that after a recent revamp of Medicare’s approach to reimbursement for these devices, the market can expect very close scrutiny in this area. 

Finally, merging the topics of substandard care and the managed care industry, Jenny described DOJ’s serious concerns around state network adequacy requirements, commenting that failing to maintain adequate networks of care constitutes substandard medical access and may be actionable. 

Trade fraud enforcement

Next, Jenny commented on DOJ’s past and future focus on trade fraud. Jenny emphasized the work of the Trade Fraud Task Force,  which brings together the resources of the Civil and Criminal Divisions, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, to bring enforcement actions against importers who unlawfully evade tariffs and other customs duties. Jenny noted that 2025 was a banner year for FCA enforcement relating to tariffs, with the highest number of qui tam filings related to duty evasion ever, representing more than 50% increase as compared to the prior five-year average. Not surprisingly, most of these cases involved improperly avoiding duties for goods manufactured in China. As part of this coordination of efforts, Jenny noted the increasing involvement of the National Courts Section of the Civil Division and the use of the Tariff Act. With its lower scienter requirement, enforcement actions brought under the Tariff Act could lead to financial recoveries even higher than the FCA’s treble damages. Jenny noted that December 18, 2025, was a prime example of this cohesive and comprehensive approach to enforcement, when the Civil Division announced the largest ever FCA settlement for trade fraud, the National Courts Section announced a separate settlement of a case brought in the Court of International Trade based on misclassification, and the Criminal Division announced a declination against a corporate entity based on voluntary disclosure, but with criminal charges and a guilty plea by a corporate executive. 

Cyber fraud enforcement

Cyber fraud was the third enforcement priority Jenny discussed, noting that DOJ secured nine cybersecurity settlements in FY 2025, and this growth among qui tams is expected to continue. 

Emerging focus area: Discrimination

After reviewing the 2025 results, Jenny turned attention to DOJ’s new areas of focus, including the issue of discrimination. Jenny remarked that those who do business with the government are expected to act fairly in their dealings with the government, and that expectation extends to how they treat their employees. In that regard, DOJ is closely reviewing companies’ hiring and compensation practices to ensure there is no discrimination on the basis of race or sex. 

Increased use of dismissal authority

Finally, Jenny emphasized DOJ’s increasing use of its dismissal authority pursuant to 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A). Specifically, Jenny stated that DOJ has exercised its dismissal authority 25 times in 2025, roughly four times more often than it did under the Biden administration. She noted that this was actually underselling DOJ’s efforts to end meritless suits, because it also pressed relators to voluntarily dismiss meritless cases. According to Jenny, DOJ attorneys are routinely assessing whether to seek dismissal when they make a decision to decline intervention.