PATRIOTIC pundits might make something of the timing, just before America’s Independence Day. As Americans prepared to celebrate the settlers who stuck it to the British in 1776, their government stuck it to a British drug firm. On July 2nd the Justice Department announced details of a $3 billion payment from GlaxoSmithKline, the old country’s biggest pharmaceutical-maker. The deal, which resolves a pile of criminal and civil charges, is the largest health-fraud settlement in American history.

The size of the deal is not new—it was announced in November—but the details are. Glaxo agreed to plead guilty to three criminal counts: the misbranding of two antidepressants and the failure to tell regulators about safety data for a diabetes drug. Those plea deals included $1 billion in payments. Glaxo also agreed to an additional $2 billion to settle civil charges under the False Claims Act.

Glaxo allegedly used spa treatments, trips to Hawaii and hunting excursions to coax doctors to write prescriptions for unapproved uses of certain drugs. In the case of Paxil, an antidepressant, Glaxo was said to have promoted a journal article that overstated the drug’s benefits for children.

In recent years, American prosecutors have accused nearly every big drug firm of nefarious sales tactics. Several have settled (see table), including Abbott Laboratories in May ($1.5 billion) and Pfizer in 2009 ($2.3 billion). To pursue these cases, the department has used an old but handy statute. The False Claims Act was passed during the civil war, to stop contractors from swindling the Union army. Congress gave it new life in 1986, promising big payouts for citizens who blew the whistle on firms that defrauded the government.

At first defence contractors were the main targets. More recently, drug firms have been a gold mine. Firms have been particularly vulnerable to charges of “off-label marketing”. America bars drug firms from promoting their pills for uses not approved by regulators. But doctors are free to prescribe drugs for such uses, which is why drug reps schmooze them.