TAF False Claims Act Video: The Fox Hates Anything That Keeps it Out of the Hen House

A couple of months ago, Patrick Burns, co-director of Taxpayers Against Fraud, sat back and asked himself — how can I explain the False Claims Act to press, public, and politicians in a way that is entertaining?

How can we do it in under two minutes?

A False Claims Act video titled — Whistleblower Awards Work for the Benefit of All.

“Of course crooked companies hate the False Claims Act,” the moderator says. “The fox hates anything that keeps it out of the hen house!”

“The False Claims Act has been defended, expanded, strengthened, and copied,” Burns said. “No other law has been more successful at rooting out corporate fraud.”

“Now that we have demonstrated the power and possibility of incentivized integrity programs, we need to broadcast information about how they work and how people with access to top-quality, non-public information about fraud against the government can blow the whistle, in an orderly way, that maximizes results. “

“In the year ahead, while we are reaching out to potential whistleblowers, we also need to reach out to organize an even larger bar of fraud-fighters.”

“This is what we do.  We build fraud fighters.”

“When our most experienced and successful False Claims Act lawyers left law school, they had never heard of the False Claim Act because the law had not yet been revitalized by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Congressman Howard Berman (D-California),” Burns said.

“None of our lawyers knew a thing about upcoding, nominal pricing, off-label marketing, the Trade Agreements Act, Stark Law, oil and gas extraction, defense procurement, Average Wholesale Price, or environmental abatement.”

“And yet today we have a well-muscled and experienced bar that knows about frauds in all these areas, and more.”

“We did that by coming together and teaching each other.”

“Our collective bar knows more about fraud than anyone else inside or outside of government.”

The two minute video leads by pointing out that  “government spends billions of dollars a day providing health care, defense, transportation, education, and other services for workers, veterans, elderly, and the young.”

“Hidden among honest providers of goods and services to these people are corporate liars, cheats and thieves.”

And then it asks — “How to stop them?”

“The answer: incentivize people to blow the whistle by bringing insider information about fraud schemes to the government.”

“Fraudsters can then be hit with triple damages, and whistleblowers can be rewarded out of the proceeds. Taxpayers are made whole, crime is deterred, and integrity is incentivized.”

“Whistleblowing works, and it is not a new idea.”

“Our founding fathers saluted whistleblower incentives, and so too did Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.”

“Billions of dollars a year are now recovered under the False Claims Act, and whistleblower programs have been embraced by more than half the states, as well as the IRS, SEC, and CFTC.”

“Of course crooked companies hate the false claims act. The fox hates anything that keeps it out of the hen house!”

“But blowing the whistle is not easy. Many whistleblowers get fired and many find it impossible to work in their professions ever again.”

“Whistleblowers have to have a great deal of non-public evidence, and have to hire a lawyer who will only get paid if they win.”

“Since thousands of hours can go into preparing a winning case, good False Claims Act attorneys only take cases they think they can win, and frivolous cases are extremely rare.”

“The False Claims Act is now getting back more than $20 for every $1 invested in investigations and prosecutions, and many billions of dollars’ worth of fraud is now deterred every year.”

“And can whistleblowers make millions for doing the right thing?  Yes they can!  In fact, that’s the idea!”

 

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