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Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions

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Reads like a John Gresham book except that its all true
Giant Killers by Henry Scammell
Telling it like it is
An informative history of the "False Claims Act"
Read about the samuri fraud fighters

Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions
Henry Scammell
Manufacturer: Atlantic Monthly Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 087113909X

Book Description

In 1986, with contractors stealing an estimated 10 percent of the total federal budget by fraud, Congress passed a newly strengthened anticorruption law. Ordinary citizens could file lawsuits on behalf of the government to recover money stolen from the public Treasury, and they would share in the result. In the years since, despite massive institutional resistance, the False Claims Act has emerged as one of the nation's most potent weapons against corporate greed. Giantkillers is the story of that law and what it has accomplished. Charged with intrigue and courtroom drama, Giantkillers describes in novelistic detail how an unlikely team - a conservative senator, a liberal congressman, and a crusading public interest attorney - revitalized a public interest law, enacted during the Civil War, that was gutted by lobbyists and almost forgotten. Giantkillers tells how the trail-blazing firm of Phillips and Cohen gave the law its teeth back and made triumphant heroes out of those previously scorned as "whistle-blowers." Providing an inside eye into the world of the whistleblowers, their adversaries, and their allies, this timely story weighs the lure of corporate greed and reckless power against the high cost of personal integrity.

Customer Reviews:

Reads like a John Gresham book except that its all true.......2007-01-05

This is a remarkable story about a group of true American heroes who fought for their country in a number of ways -- some on the battlefield and some in the courts.

The principal characters challenged huge, corrupt and powerful companies that stole from the American taxpayers in many ways selling shoddy, defective and in some cases nonexistent goods and services to the US government: Defense contractors that sell defective airplanes to the US Air Force; manufacturers who sell defective "bullet proof" vests to our police; drug companies that bill Medicare for defective or nonexistent medicine for the elderly and on and on and on. All of this happened. And it still does. Corporate "mobsters" will do anything for a buck.

The work described in the book continues that of President Abraham Lincoln when he first signed into law the Federal False Claims Act in 1863 giving Americans the right to act as private attorney generals to sue corporate mobsters stealing from all of us.

Its a great read but it will make you angry before you've finished.

Giant Killers by Henry Scammell.......2006-07-29

I hand this book out to all of the whistleblowers whom I recruit to bring qui tam actions. It depicts what can and will go wrong for a whistleblower if they let their employer know they are a whistleblower too early in the process or in the wrong way - unemployment, blacklisting, starting over at the bottom rungs of the career ladder in a different industry etc.... The main takeaways for whistlelbowers are to keep their activities secret, maintain the sanctity of the "federal seal" and only inform your employer that you are engaged in a "protected activity" on advice of competent counsel. Harry Markopolos, CFA Financial Fraud Investigator

Telling it like it is.......2004-08-08

Giantkillers does an excellent job describing the Justtice Department's ambivalence about prosecuting white collar criminals, corporate and individuals. When local Crimestoppers offer $1000 rewards to anonymous tipsters for the apprehension of a liquor store robber who nets a $100 and banks offer $25K rewards to convict a bank robber who loots 10 grand; it is deplorable when Justice Department lawyers often ignore and occasionally subvert honest citizens/taxpayers who object to their employer's larceny of literally millions and even billions of dollars. Perhaps if these civil servants couldn't plan on retiring to go work for the companies they're supposed to prosecute they might adjust their conflicted attitudes.:-)

Times have changed and so have perceptions. Time Magazine honored three Whistleblowers (all women) as their Man of the Year. A decade ago such individuals were typically disparaged as disgruntled, malcontents. Whistleblowers owe a debt of gratitude to the Fastow's of Enron, Barney Ebbers of WorldCom and hundreds more corrupt executives for exposing how rampant corporate corruption has become in America by sticking their fellow citizens where it hurts, in their personal pocketbook.

Even with the present focus on corporate thuggery, the US Attorney in Houston had to be publicly rebuffed by Judge Hittner who rejected their minimal sentence recommendation (<5months) offered by the federal prosecutors to Enron's female crook, Lea Fastow.

The bad news is that in almost all the cases in this book (apparently focused exclusively on the practice of Phillips and Cohen during the 90s) very few of the perpetrators went to jail, using their company's money and lawyers to buy their way out of jail where they belong forever. The good news is today judges like Sim Lake are giving appropriate sentences (24 years to Dynegy's crook, Jamie Olis) and Judge Hittner refusing Lea Fastow's request to delay her sentence until the week after her Jewish holiday, Passover. How does she spell chutzpah? Hittner had compassionately agreed not to incarcerate her and her husband simultaneously, for the sake of their children.

This book hero worships Phillips and Cohen who represent the mostly noble individuals cited. What is striking though was Phillips and Cohens complete adversion to prosecuting a case on their own when the Federal Government declines to intervene. Essentially Phillips and Cohen labored mightily to induce and cajole reluctant, footdragging justice department bureaucrats to step in and prosecute; absent that, Phillips and Cohen seem disinclined to fight for their clients on their own, as is their option.

In my view, this adversion reveals that Phillips and Cohen are somewhat less heroic than the author portrays them. A coward will fight with allies when he is likely to win, a real hero engages a fight, that alone he might lose.

The reader will get a multifaceted viewpoint of the struggle by individuals of integrity and courage who confront their rapacious employers and cowardly managers. A must-read for anyone who is disgusted with government ripoffs and appalled by feckless federal attorneys whose job is to vigorously prosecute the scoundrels. Joel Hesch is an exception to the rule.

An informative history of the "False Claims Act".......2004-07-17

Giantkillers: The Team And The Law That Help Whistle-Blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions by freelance writer Henry Scammell is an informed and informative history of the "False Claims Act" from its legislative origins during the American Civil War as a way to halt the sale of lame horses and worthless gunpowder to the Union Army, down to the present day hallmarked by major corporate frauds on an Enron or Worldcom scale. Illustrative cases include a landmark Medicare fraud case against HCA (which resulted in a fine of 1.7 billion dollars being paid to the federal government); a fraud case against National Health Laboratories that led to the government recovering more than $800 million from the medical lab industry; a $59.5 million settlement by GE for scamming the Pentagon and Israeli air force; the Salomon Smith Barney banking scandals that collectively paid more than $200 million for illegally skimming huge profits from municipal bond deals; and more. Giantkillers is a highly recommended revelation of corporate greed, reckless power, and personal integrity.

Read about the samuri fraud fighters.......2004-03-03

Though Henry Scammell has chosen to illuminate the federal False Claims Act through the high-profile cases of a single law firm, we now have a growing False Claims Act bar reshaping corporate culture, and an ever-increasing number of states embracing state versions of the law. The result is that in boardrooms across the country there is a new realization that fraud against the government can be effectively prosecuted, and that triple damages may be exceed out of date cost of doing business assumptions based on the wrist-slap penalties that formerly pertained. Henry Scammell's eminently readable book makes clear that nailing the con artists depends on a rare breed of individual who is willing to risk career and peace of mind to see justice done. The journey is rarely easy, and never short. Scammell recounts whistleblowers that fought for years and risked marriages and bankruptcy to see their cases through. While some focus on the economic payoff at the end, Scammell pays attention to the terror of the ride - a ride that is often shared by law firms that invest hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of time building cases in which the government often shows only a passing interest -- at least in the beginning. Part history book, part psychological narrative, and part forensic fraud report, Giant Killers weaves a compelling tale about the personalities and travails of doing the right thing - and the ultimate payoff in the end.
This book is a good read and you should read it before John Grisham does a novel on one of the stories Scammell relates.

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