InfoBytes Blog
DOJ announces $7.9 million FCA settlement with student loan contractor
On January 14, the DOJ announced a $7.9 million settlement with a contractor that serviced student loans for lenders under the Federal Family Education Loan Program to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act by submitting or causing the submission of false claims to the Department of Education. According to the settlement agreement, from 2006 to 2016, the contractor allegedly knowingly failed to make required financial adjustments to borrower accounts and improperly treated some borrowers as eligible for military deferments, which resulted in incorrect reporting to the Department of Education and losses to the United States. The settlement press release noted that the contractor paid $1.4 million to the Department of Education under a remediation plan to partially resolve the allegations and received a credit for that payment under the settlement agreement.