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

Rating:
Summary: Hopelessly biased
Review: Capitalism is built on greed, the most powerful motivator of mankind. Greed has built our nation, but also threatens the foundation of our society.

This book details the amazing story of how a few men and women set out to change some of this and protect all of us. They took an old law that had been rendered useless, overcoming immense obstacles in the process, and succeeded. The new law enabled the common man to fight for the US government, and be rewarded for doing so. Nothing could be more American, and no other law could be more threatening to the corporations that wanted to continue to cheat all of us by sending our soldiers to war with defective weapons, bribing our doctors and billing $6,000 for toilet seats.

The corporate crooks fought back with the help of elected representatives they had bought and paid for. In the end, the battle was taken to the Supreme Court. The final verdict resulted in a complete victory-the False Claims Act had stood up to the challenge.

The rest is history. Tens of billions of stolen dollars have been returned to US taxpayers and hundreds of billions have been saved because would be corporate criminals had second thoughts. All because a few men and women had a dream to stop the crooks, using rewards to fight greed.

People don't change. We are all the same in Russia, the US or Europe. What changes is the system we live within. It can be just or unjust. It can bring out the best or the worst in us. Corporations are there to make a profit, any way this is possible. Mr. Phillips, founder of Phillips and Cohen made sure that making a profit by stealing from the government became less desirable. In the end, all of us won and the US became a better place to live.

Rating:
Summary: Telling it like it is
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An informative history of the "False Claims Act"
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating history of the "False Claims Act"
Review: Henry Scammells latest offering is an interesting read from a couple of different perspectives. Students of history will enjoy reading about the emergence of the "False Claims Act." in the 1860's and how a handful of individuals recognized how it might become relevant again in the late twentieth century. This law, supported by President Abraham Lincoln and enacted by the Congress during the Civil War was designed to encourage citizens to "blow the whistle" on fraud. It had been quite effective in the mid to late nineteenth century but its provisions were hopelessly out of date and the law had essentially been dormant for fifty years. John Phillips, a talented and committed young lawyer who founded the Center for Law in the Public Interest became aware of the law in 1983 and immediately recognized its potential. Phillips knew that if the law was revised properly that it would have a major impact on public interest law. He found a pair of powerful allies in the Congress who helped shepherd through the needed changes to the law. They were strange bedfellows indeed. Chuck Grassley, the conservative Republican senator from Iowa and Howard Berman, a liberal Democratic congressman from California played key roles in getting the revised "False Claims Act" passed.
Most of the book, however, is devoted to the trials and tribulations of those courageous individuals who felt morally bound to stand up and risk everything to challenge practices and procedures they believed to be illegal and immoral. Those cited in this book came from a wide range of industries. Jim Alderson recognized fraud in the health care industry. Emil Stache found his company was shipping obviously defective products to the Defense Department. Michael Lissack decided that he could not in good conscience remain silent about the unchecked corruption he had become aware of on Wall Street. And there were others....many others. Scammell does a terrific job of revealing what it was like to be one of of these "whistleblowers". In future years, this book will prove to be an extremely valuable resource for anyone who finds themselves in this position.
After reading the book, I learned that nearly 60% of the suits filed under the "False Claims Act" were dismissed. If this is true I would agree that the author should have taken a bit of time discussing the reasons why. The author is obviously a huge proponent of this law. And a great many government employees are not happy with the "False Claims Act" and it's provision to allow individuals to sue contractors on the governments behalf. Too bad. Governmental inertia is a major reason why the law was resurrected in the first place. This is a book you will enjoy and learn from at the same time.

Rating:
Summary: Good read and worth buying!
Review: There are a lot of ways to judge a book, but the most important is whether it is a good read. This book is not only well written, it is entertaining, and it provides a glimmer of hope for those of us that despair over the scale of government waste. Government agencies are often embarrassed when ripped off, and are therefore slow to prosecute. What this book makes clear is that the secret to ferreting out fraud is to deputize citizens who are often better placed to understand the complexities of corporate scams than many government lawyers, and who are often highly motivated as well. The motivation is not always monetary. More often then not is a personal and righteous anger at being asked to lie about the quality and the price of the goods being produced at taxpayer expense. Just as a small match can extinguish a lot of darkness, so too can a single whistleblower extinguish a lot of fraud by changing the economics of lying and cheating. The system must work; last year False Claims Act settlements were up 75%, and it's been a while since I read an article about a $700 toilet seat. Haliburton better watch out!

Rating:
Summary: Good read and worth buying!
Review: There are a lot of ways to judge a book, but the most important is whether it is a good read. This book is not only well written, it is entertaining, and it provides a glimmer of hope for those of us that despair over the scale of government waste. Government agencies are often embarrassed when ripped off, and are therefore slow to prosecute. What this book makes clear is that the secret to ferreting out fraud is to deputize citizens who are often better placed to understand the complexities of corporate scams than many government lawyers, and who are often highly motivated as well. The motivation is not always monetary. More often then not is a personal and righteous anger at being asked to lie about the quality and the price of the goods being produced at taxpayer expense. Just as a small match can extinguish a lot of darkness, so too can a single whistleblower extinguish a lot of fraud by changing the economics of lying and cheating. The system must work; last year False Claims Act settlements were up 75%, and it's been a while since I read an article about a $700 toilet seat. Haliburton better watch out!

Rating:
Summary: Read about the samuri fraud fighters
Review: 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.