CORPORATE CRIME REPORTER
What
If You Held a Conference on the False Claims Act. . .
19 Corporate Crime Reporter 42(1), October 24, 2005
Here’s the deal about legal conferences that are held in Washington, D.C.
–
Organizers are dying to have reporters attend.
Conferences are a way to draw attention to your issue.
And to your group.
If you get a handful of reporters to attend, it’s considered a success.
If you get one reporter to write one story about your conference, it’s
considered eternal bliss.
If you get C-Span to cover it, it’s considered the equivalent of hitting
a grand slam in the World Series.
But then there is the Taxpayers Against Fraud conference held annually in Washington,
D.C. – now in its fifth year.
Except for those who are attending, hardly anyone knows about it.
There is no mention of the conference on the Taxpayer Against Fraud web site.
Leading defense attorneys and reporters only hear rumors about it.
But lo and behold – it exists.
And it’s being held this coming Thursday and Friday at the Jurys Hotel
near DuPont Circle in Washington, D.C.
And it has a line-up that legal conference organizers would die for.
Everybody who’s anybody in the field – government prosecutors, plaintiffs
attorneys – more than 200 of them – will be attending.
Unless you are a defense attorney.
Then you are not invited.
Or God forbid – C-Span – don’t call!
Jack Boese, a partner at Fried Frank in Washington, D.C., is one of the top
False Claims Act defense attorneys in the United States.
He’s the author of the leading legal treatise in the field.
He’s co-chair of the Qui Tam Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s
White Collar Crime Committee.
And he knows something about conferences on the False Claims Act.
Every summer, he pulls together the ABA’s National Institute on Civil
False Claims and Qui Tam Actions held in Washington, D.C.
And he invites all parties – attorneys for the government, for the whistleblowers,
for the corporations.
And even Jack Boese didn’t know about the Taxpayers Against Fraud conference.
“You’re the first person to call me about this,” Boese said
when we rang.
“I’d be happy to speak at it,” Boese said. “But I never
get asked.”
Boese and Taxpayers Against Fraud don’t see eye to eye when it comes to
the False Claims Act.
“I’ve always been adverse to them both philosophically and academically,”
Boese said.
Taxpayers Against Fraud was set up to promote the use of the False Claims Act
as “the single most important tool U.S. taxpayers have to recover the
billions of dollars stolen through fraud by U.S. government contractors every
year.”
The False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to sue on behalf of the government
to recover money defrauded from the government – with the whistleblower
– or relator – pocketing up to 30 percent of the amount recovered.
Boese represents corporations sued under the False Claims Act and believes that
the law is being abused by relators and the government.
“It has incentives that are not good for the public interest or the economy,”
Boese told Corporate Crime Reporter. “Insiders are not encouraged
to self-report wrongdoing. Instead, they are encouraged to file a lawsuit, to
become relators, and then to become millionaires.”
(For the complete text of our 2003 interview with Jack Boese, see 17 Corporate Crime Reporter 3(10), January 20, 2003, print edition only.)
Taxpayers Against Fraud has pulled together a stellar line-up for its off-the-record
two-day conference this week.
The relator attorneys making presentations include: Eric Havian and Mary Louise
Cohen of Phillips & Cohen, Neil Getnick and Lesley Ann Skillen of Getnick
& Getnick, Michael Behn of Behn & Wyetzner, and William Hurlock of Boies
Schiller.
The government attorneys making presentations include: Susan
Winkler and Michael Loucks, Assistant U.S. Attorneys in Boston, Peter Winn,
Assistant U.S. Attorney in Seattle, Richard Hayes, Assistant U.S. Attorney in
Brooklyn, Mary Riordan, Senior Counsel, Inspector General, Health and Human
Services, Virginia Gibson, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia, and Michael
Sheehan, Associate U.S. Attorney in Philadelphia.
Also attending will be False Claims Act booster Congressman Howard Berman (D-California)
and a whistleblower – Albert Campbell, who brought a successful qui tam
lawsuit against Lockheed Martin.
There will also be a panel of federal officials from the Commercial Litigation
Branch of the Justice Department’s Civil Division – including Alan
Kleinburd, Michael Granston and Stephen Altman.
But what if C-Span wants to attend?
Corporate Crime Reporter
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