What If You Held a Conference on the False Claims Act. . .
Conferences are a way to draw attention to your issue.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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