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

Henry Scammell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 12, 2004

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Freelance author Scammell has written a panegyric to the False Claims Act, a Civil War-vintage statute authorizing private lawsuits (called qui tam actions) to recover money swindled from the federal government. As revised and strengthened in 1986, the False Claims Act permits a whistle-blower to sue on the government's behalf; if the case succeeds, the whistle-blower receives up to 25% of the judgment. According to the author, over $6 billion has been recovered since 1986 through cases under the False Claims Act. Scammell selects for review several prominent cases brought against diverse frauds in the defense and health care industries and the municipal bond market. In each instance, according to Scammell, the motives driving the whistle-blowers are unreservedly noble, and the defendant companies are pervaded by fraud and malice. Moreover, in each case the government regulators are craven and ineffectual and the Department of Justice indifferent, while the private firm representing the whistle-blowers is unerringly brilliant. All this might well be true in the selected cases, since, after all, these lawsuits netted stupendous recoveries. The book's appendix discloses that more than 60% of qui tam complaints filed since 1986 have been dismissed with no recovery. Some account of this high incidence of failure would have been helpful to understanding the overall impact of the law. Omitting any discussion of the act's mixed record of success, Scammell maintains a positive tone in this appreciation of a little-known weapon against public fraud.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press (January 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087113909X
• ISBN-13: 978-0871139092
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #624,710 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read about the samuri fraud fighters, March 3, 2004

By 

James W. Moorman (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions (Hardcover)

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.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating history of the "False Claims Act", February 18, 2004

By 

Paul Tognetti "The real world is so much more... (Cranston, RI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions (Hardcover)

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 "Giantkillers", 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.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE, February 10, 2004

By 

Peter Rost (Short Hills, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Giantkillers: The Team and the Law that Help Whistle-blowers Recover America's Stolen Billions (Hardcover)

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.