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Damon's the 25th largest False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. §§ 3729–3733) settlement in history. At the time, the criminal penalty portion was the largest ever recovered in a health care fraud prosecution and the largest criminal fine ever in Massachusetts.

The $119 million represented $35.2 million as a criminal fine and $83.7 to resolve related civil liabilities for $25 million in fraudulent billing.

(By comparison, I settled a FCA/Stark/Medicare Anti-Kickback claim for a client a few years earlier for under $15 million for claims of many, many multiples of $25 million, but there wasn't blatant fraud involved.)

The settlement includes the treble damages - three dollars recovered by the government for every fraudulent dollar billed - under the FCA.

What did Damon Labs do? When a physician ordered a common blood panels, Damon bundled three extra tests in the blood panels even though the physician did not request the extra tests. Then Damon billed Medicare for the panels, and charged separately for the three tests.

Mitt is lying when he says the company stopped the practice when he was on the board. According to the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "[t]he global settlement was reached with Corning, Inc., which earlier had purchased Damon and stopped the illegal billing." Source.