[en] In recirculating accelerators, and in particular energy recovery linacs (ERLs), the maximum current can be limited by multipass, multibunch beam breakup (BBU), which occurs when the electron beam interacts with the higher-order modes (HOMs) of an accelerating cavity on the accelerating pass and again on the energy recovering pass. This effect is of particular concern in the design of modern high average current energy recovery accelerators utilizing superconducting RF technology. Experimental characterization and observations of the instability at the Jefferson Laboratory 10 kW Free Electron Laser (FEL) are presented. Measurements of the threshold current for the instability are made under a variety of beam conditions and compared to the predictions of several BBU simulation codes. This represents the first time in which the codes have been experimentally benchmarked. With BBU posing a threat to high current beam operation in the FEL Driver, several suppression schemes were developed