A Law Firm Just for Whistleblowers - Poppy Alexander - Climate Money Watchdog

Episode Transcript
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Greg Williams (00:10):
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment.
We're a private, nonpartisan,nonprofit organization that does
not accept advertisers orsponsors. So we can only do this
work with your support. Pleasevisit us at claim money

(00:30):
watchdog.org To learn more aboutus and consider making a
donation. My name is GregWilliams and I learned to
investigate and report on waste,fraud and abuse in federal
spending. While working at theproject on government oversight,
or Pogo 30 years ago, I learnedto do independent research as
well as to work withconfidential informants or

(00:50):
whistleblowers to uncover thingslike overpriced spare parts,
like the infamous $435 hammers,and expensive military weapons
systems that did not work asadvertised. I was taught by my
co host Tina razor, who foundedBobo in 1981, and founded climb
money watchdog with me a fewyears ago, Dena has spent 40

(01:13):
years investigating andsometimes recovering millions of
dollars wasted by the DefenseDepartment and other branches of
government. She did this atPogo, as an independent
journalist, as an author and asa professional investigator. Our
guest tonight is papi Alexander,a founding member of the law

(01:34):
firm whistleblower part a lawfirm dedicated representing
whistleblowers and reportingfraud and misconduct in a wide
spectrum of variants includinghealth care, procurement,
securities and commoditiestaxes, money laundering and
sanctions, evasion, customs,environmental remediation and

(01:54):
vehicle safety. Poppy representswhistleblowers and government
entities in key Tom lawsuits,otherwise known as false claims
suit, as well as under thevarious agency whistleblower
programs, including thoseadministered by the Internal
Revenue Service, Securities andExchange Commission FinCEN

(02:14):
Commodity Futures TradingCommission, and Department of
Transportation. Poppy's practicefocuses on issues of in
international corruption andfinancial misconduct, with a
specialty in the Foreign CorruptPractices Act and money
laundering cases. She writes andspeaks regularly about emergency
topics in financial fraud,including sanctions violations,

(02:37):
SBA sees and cryptocurrency. welast spoke to Bobbi back in July
of 2022, when she had alreadyestablished an impressive track
record representingwhistleblowers at Constantine
cannon. She graduated fromHarvard Law School in 2012. She
was the CO editor in chief ofthe Harvard civil rights civil

(02:58):
liberties Law Review, and anactive participant in the Human
Rights Clinic. Working on issuesrelated to corporate
accountability for human rightsviolations in Africa and
military abuses in SoutheastAsia, she was awarded the Dean's
Award for Community Leadershipin recognition of her
contributions to the schoolcommunity. Poppy has been named

(03:19):
to the Super Lawyers risingstars list every year since
2016. And prior law school,having worked on election reform
issues before beginning graduatework at the University of
California at Berkeley, whereshe studied political and
critical theory. We're delightedto have Poppy here tonight to

(03:39):
talk about her new work and hernew firm. Whistleblower Parker's
Deena. Is there anything elseyou'd like to say about why
we're excited to have Poppy withus? Well,

Dina Rasor (03:50):
we're excited because one of the other people
in the firm named Eric cavion. Istarted working with back in the
early 90s, off and on for years,you know, swapping ideas and
stuff actually doing a littleinvestigation when I had Bellman
and razor when we were doing asinvestigators. And I'm really

(04:13):
excited because they startedthis was a blur of partners,
they actually now I've seen Ericgo from one law firm to another
law firm. And of course, he'sbeen wildly successful. And I
also got to meet Poppy and someof the other people. And now
they it's sort of like the, theA Team sort of all got together

(04:33):
and they started this new firm,whistleblower partners. And I
wrote what I really love aboutit is it's not just I work I've
worked with key tam lawyers foryears, and I helped get the law
changed back in 86. So that'show long I've been messing with
lawyers on this law. And what Ireally like about your approach

(04:56):
is I would just get lawyers whowould get in a whole bunch of
was Laura's filed bunch of casesand throw spaghetti against the
wall and see what sticks. And itis devastating to get somebody
to go through and file a case.
Thinking that, yes, this lawyersgot as much passion as I do. And
when it starts to get a littlehard, they leave. Or they say we
can't do it, or there's a flawin the case. And I used to sit

(05:19):
there and say, as aninvestigator, no flaws in the
case, you just don't want to dothis, because it looks like it's
going to be hard. And so what Ireally like about what Eric and
Poppy and everyone else in thefirm have done is they've been
able to, they've been able tohave an attitude of we're going
to work with whistleblowerpartners is really interesting.

(05:42):
So they want to partner with thewhistleblower, which is really
what I've always tried to do,too. I mean, I've I've quit law
firms when they don't treat mywhistleblowers, right. And
because it's so hard, and whatI'm really pleased about is now
they're going to be looking notjust at individual cases, but
you know, is the SEC thingworking, or is this working,

(06:03):
what's working and not working.
And Eric has such an excellentreputation in Washington, he can
get people and justicedepartments to fix. And so I'm,
I'm really pleased. And then andthat's really on my first
question is tell us about thenew firm? Well,

Poppy Alexander (06:23):
Dina, first of all, I think we should hire you
as our marketing team. So thankyou, I mean, all the threads
that you're pulling on right noware exactly why we started our
new firm. And I just want tothank you both so much for
having me on to talk about it.
Because it's, it's a project I'mreally excited about. I mean,
just starting with what yousaid, I have the best colleagues

(06:44):
in the world. And I know I havethe best colleagues in the
world. And obviously, that makesall the difference in how we
approach everything. Andlaunching a law firm is not
easy. Everyone told me it's noteasy. It turns out they were
right. It's not easy. I'm notsure I would have done it with
any other group of people outthere. But I am lucky to be
working with the people I'mworking with, who all share the

(07:07):
same approach that I do. Youknow what, what we talk about is
the whole whistleblowerapproach, because whistleblowing
is very hard. It's a longprocess we're working with, you
know, folks who are oftentimesgoing through the hardest, or
one of the hardest thingsthey've ever experienced in
their entire lives. Oftentimes,they're dealing with

(07:30):
retaliation, they're dealingwith all these other challenges,
right. And it's not enough tojust be their lawyer, and we
never are just their lawyer,we're oftentimes the person they
might be in close communicationwith, about, you know, whatever
this particular thing is thatthey're coming forward about,
we're working with them througha really challenging period, and
we absolutely recognize it. Andyou hit the nail on the head

(07:53):
with when you identified why wecall ourselves whistleblower
partners. We are our clientspartners, we're not just their
lawyers, and we put that name onpurpose. And we are we are each
other's partners, obviously. Andthat's one of the big things and
we are partnering together. Andwe're jumping in feet first
together to this new venture.

(08:16):
And, you know, you've mentionedmy colleague, Eric caving in a
few times, who is, you know,truly the best of the best out
there. And who's been doing thisforever. And it's not many
people who are willing to starta new law firm at the stage of
his career that he's at, buthe's doing it because he cares
so much. And I think that's justrepresentative of, you know, who

(08:37):
we are and what we want to be.
And so we're each other'spartners, we're also our clients
partners, are our clientspartners throughout this entire
process, where our clientspartners in every way that they
need us. And we act as anadvisor, attorney, friend, you
know, it just sounding board,you know, occasional punching

(08:57):
bag, we are who our clients needus to be. And we are their
partners. And then we're alsothe government's partners
throughout this process. Andthat's one of the really unique
parts about being whistleblowerlawyer, is that we work with the
government directly, and we arepartners with the government and
that we are feeding thegovernment the most helpful
information we can and doingeverything we can to support the

(09:19):
government's investigation,because we believe our clients
information is so valuable andso important to government
enforcement efforts, thateverything we can do to support
that potential enforcementaction is absolutely in the
public's interest as well as inour clients. So those are all
the reasons that we arewhistleblower partners, and then

(09:39):
I am so proud that we are who weare.

So I think you know, most times when somebody's
lucky enough to find one or twoor three people to partner with
in the way that you describe.
It's still something of anuphill battle you wind up being
just too for three people, and Iwas just amazed at the number of
partners that you have, and thenumber of success stories that

(10:05):
you have on the website, whenyou seem like you are
immediately a force to bereckoned with not just a small
boutique law firm.

I mean, we'd like we'd like to think so I
mean, we certainly are aboutique law firm in this sort
of grander scheme of things,though, most of the smaller law
firms are relatively small. Soyou know, compare compared to
our, you know, sort ofcolleagues at the bar, we are
one of the larger firms outthere already. And, you know,
I've been joking about this, butwe are doing the thing that
everyone says you shouldn't do,which is founding a law firm

(10:39):
with, you know, over a dozenattorneys. But there's a reason
why it works in this case. Andthat case, is exactly what
you've referenced of our recordof success, who our colleagues
are, what we're ready to do, andalso the work that we have, and
the clients that we have, andthe work that we are continuing

(11:02):
to grow. So it feels possible todo the impossible right now.

Dina Rasor (11:08):
So I want the other thing that I think what is
really bodes well for you is I'malways, I check every couple of
years of how much money EricHaven has returned, not just
your firm himself, has returnedto the government. And, you
know, as an investigator, Ididn't have as much control over

(11:29):
that. But I worked on caseswhere we returned 200 million,
which, you know, it's like, wow,and I'm like, Yeah, two days of
toilet paper in the Pentagon.
But you know, hey, but Eric is,is he gonna be over a billion
now is, you know, it's it's overa billion dollars that he helped
go back to the federalgovernment. So the kinds of
things you guys are doing isinsane reason we started climate

(11:51):
money watchdog was becausepeople don't think about how you
spend the money is just asimportant as about getting the
money passed, the money getspassed. And I've told this to
whistleblowers, I've told thisto legislatures ever since 1981,
when I started Pogo, and I said,you know, if you want your

(12:16):
program to be successful, youhave to spend the money
correctly, because all thepeople who don't like it, all
the corporate people, orwhatever, you know, people who
didn't like the key term loanwhen we passed it, the whole
thing, and, and everything else,you know, they would try to kill
it is if you don't make surethat the government is

(12:39):
overseeing the money, and thecorporations are not ripping
them off. You know, it's there.
Whenever there's fraud and wayspeople don't, people, the
average voter in person doesn'twant to spend money on something
that's wasted. And, you know,that's one of the reasons that

(13:00):
we got a defense budget freezeright in the middle of the
Reagan administration, which waseveryone said, it couldn't
happen. And it was not all my,you know, late nights, trying to
figure out why the M one tankdoesn't work and going through
tests, results and everythingelse. I hate to say this, but
it's like anything else in theworld, it's all marketing. We
came up with it, we came up withsome overpriced spare parts.

(13:24):
And, you know, most of thelisteners are too young to
remember that, but that that wason fire in the 1980s, you know,
members of Congress wearing, youknow, a nut that's worth $1,000
dipped in gold around theirnecks in the barber box, or did
that and, and all this kind ofstuff. So what happens is, is
that people got the public gotso angry, that they actually we

(13:48):
actually got a defense budgetfreeze for one year, which would
save the government enormousamount of money, because people
were doing things like we haddone the $435 Hammer, which
could be bought for $7 wasbought for $7. And then all the
overhead added and people beganto pay their taxes and hammers.
Me they literally sending theIRS and that's the kind of thing

(14:12):
that gets people to understandthat this isn't just some lawyer
and thing to make whistleblowersrich. That's what I was told
before. You lawyers, you justwant to make visible which, and
you've made some whistleblowerswith millionaires. I've made a
couple of whistleblowers. Itfeels good. You know, it kind of

(14:35):
balances that scale that we allfeel like sometimes never
balance. So anyway, I just am soexcited about your new firm. And
one I'd like to ask you abouteach one of these laws that you
use, you can use anenvironmental cases and if

(14:55):
anything has changed since thepodcast you did, which I think a
lot has changed in the coffeebug cast, but I remember being
sort of gobsmacked with the ssomething I didn't know when we
did the podcast last at the SECis that was able to the SEC was
able to go through and the tipprogram and everything else and

(15:18):
it was actually working andworking new and and you could
use, you could use environmentstandard environmental clauses
in government contracts thatthese companies have. So that it
didn't necessarily mean thatthey had to be cheating on the
solar panels or cheating on thewindmills, or whatever they're
doing are carbon capture, whichis a giant disaster. They were

(15:42):
you were able to go in there.
And then it gives theenvironmentalists a chance to go
in there. And if they're notbuilding the roads or doing the
environmental things, right. Andthey have it their contract that
they can that can actually goback and cancel that contract,
which I remember in the middleof the podcast, I was like, wow,
I didn't know this, because Ihadn't done the SEC. So let me
Why don't you tell us what haschanged since then some of the

(16:04):
new tip programs and got somelisted, but what you think the
new ones, with an emphasis onwhat you think the new ones
bring to the table? Sure.

Um, so I think I have to admit that I don't
remember exactly when we lasttalked in exactly where
everything was then. So forgiveme if I'm repeating myself. But
I think one of the real trendsthat we've seen the last couple
of years from the SEC, has beena real focus on fraud in the ESG

(16:38):
space. So companies lying abouttheir environmental, social and
governance policies. And whatwe've seen has been the SEC
using that as a way to get atsome, you know, environmental
and human rights issues on thebehalf of companies and so on.
And one of the examples I reallylike using her is looking at the

(17:01):
action against the Brazilianmining company volley, which, as
you might remember, wasresponsible for a massive bridge
collapse in Brazil, which causeda huge amount of trouble. And
the SEC ultimately brought anaction against folly, not for
the bridge collapse, but forallegedly lying about their

(17:25):
governance policies. So theymade all sorts of
representations about theirgovernance policies. And the SEC
got them. They said that theywere allegedly lying about those
governance policies, because ifthey had had, the level of
governance they claimed to havehad, there's no way the bridge
would have broken and bridgewould have failed. And that that

(17:45):
was a sign of a governancefailure. It's a very interesting
strategy to get at what wasultimately an environmental
issue. But they got to it from adifferent way. And we're seeing
those kinds of environmental,social, and then governance case
is now in sort of all sorts ofdifferent aspects. And one other

(18:06):
case I really want to highlightis there's an organization
called Mighty Earth that hasdone very good work focusing on
the ESG allegedmisrepresentations by the meat
company JBS related to theirwork in the Brazilian
rainforest, which, again, hasbeen a really interesting

(18:29):
strategy of focusing on the ESGaspects of it to get at the
ultimate underlyingenvironmental issue.

So I just want to take a moment and explain to our
listeners, sort of how thisworks, you know, what is the
Securities and ExchangeCommission doing, governing a
foreign entity? And what youknow, legal, legal and logical
methods they use to go aboutthese cases?

Sure. So we are recording this podcast on the
day after the SEC is 90thbirthday, which is a nice
occasion to remember that thisagency is not as old as we might
all think of it as, yeah, theSEC was created in the 30s to
regulate what was then seen asrampant fraud in you know,

(19:25):
unscrupulous companies marketingto investors. And this, of
course, was right after thestock market crash and dealing
with the fallout from that. Andwhat we got from that were sort
of current securities lawregimes, which are ultimately
very straightforward and simple.
The SEC is the federalregulatory commission that is

(19:46):
responsible for laying down therules around investments in the
securities. So you know, wethink of the New York Stock
Exchange, it's NASDAQ. It's allof the other are sort of
publicly traded securitiesmarkets. They also have some
regulatory power over privatesecurities and private

(20:06):
investments. As well as somethings you might not necessarily
think of. For example, manypyramid schemes actually do
qualify as securities. And theSEC has regulatory power over
any qualified securities. So theSEC regulates they also enforce.
So when you violate thesecurities laws, the SEC has the

(20:29):
right to bring enforcementactions against you for
different companies and youknow, as well as unscrupulous
investment advisors, brokerdealers and other entities
within the SEC has jurisdiction.
Many foreign companies aretraded on the US stock
exchanges, and they sometimesare traded actively. On You

(20:54):
know, they might be listed onthe New York Stock Exchange, or
they might be traded on what'scalled over the counter or OTC
and most I shouldn't say most,many of the companies that are
traded OTC are also going tofall within the SEC has
jurisdiction. In in the DoddFrank legislation that grew out

(21:19):
of the Bernie Madoff Ponzischeme scandal, and the SEC
created a whistleblower officeand created a whistleblower
program and I should I would befailing if I failed to mention
that the CFTC. Also created wasfor office at the same time,

(21:40):
essentially under the same law,and with virtually identical
regulations, some very smalldifferences on both and the
CFTC, which regulates thecommodities market. And the SEC
regulates the securities market.
And for both programs, they nowhave a tipper, and that means
that anyone with informationrelated to a violation of their

(22:00):
the relevant laws that theagency is responsible for, can
bring that information to theagency, you file the information
with the whistleblower office,the whistleblower office then
sends it out to the enforcementteam best position to evaluate
it, they look at it, they kickthe tires, they talk to the
whistleblower, potentially, theysubpoena documents from the

(22:23):
company, they interview folks,and they ultimately make a
decision where they're going toact on that information. So
that's the way that the SECwhistleblower program has been
working since it was created aspart of Dodd Frank, these days,
the SEC will tell you that mostof their good cases come from
whistleblowers CFTC, I increasein a very similar boat. And a

(22:47):
very significant number of theirgood cases are also coming from
whistleblowers. Thewhistleblower program is now
integral to our securities,regulation and enforcement in
this country.

So perhaps to summarize, you as a as a private
company may not come to theUnited States, courting
investors and gain thoseinvestors by lying to them. And
the SEC is charged withupholding that basic principle.
And if you lie to our investorsin particular about how virtuous

(23:22):
you are in terms of environment,social justice or governance,
that violates SEC law, and theSEC is going to take you to take
you to task for that, to

you know, to give you the lawyer, the answer,
unfortunately, depends a littlebit on what you mean by solicit
American investors. But to theextent you are publicly offering
up investment in your company toAmerican investors, then yes,
almost for sure the SEC is goingto have jurisdiction over you.
If you are going out on what wecall investor roadshows, and you

(23:56):
have you know, a PowerPointpresentation, you're showing to
every major mutual fund companyand private equity group out
there and all the family officesthat says, you know, here's all
the amazing things that we doand their whole lie, then yeah,
the SEC is probably good and toask them questions.

Dina Rasor (24:12):
Yeah, and I wanted to bring up what we talked about
Pat before and we should notassume that everyone's seen the
bad podcast from two years ago.
But there's also the key tamlaw, which is, is, you know,
actual legal, and for the SEC ismore administrative. So that's
it's it doesn't sound like thatmakes a big difference, but it

(24:34):
does. And where you contemptcases cases can actually go to
court. This is usually decidedadministratively. Last time, I
think we talked a little bitabout greenwashing. Because
greenwashing is you know exactlywhat's going on now and
especially with, you know, oilcompanies who are getting more

(24:56):
than fossil fuel companies thatare getting more and more of
themselves into all the jobBiden money that's coming out.
And it's kind of startling howmuch, but they also do this
greenwashing, which, which theydo a lot of it. I've seen they
do it on their reports to theirstockholders and people. Oh,

(25:18):
yeah, everything's fine. Youknow, we got it too, you know,
and you're not allowed to dothat. If you're doing if you're
doing something that's actuallynot true. And so I'm just
wondering how you think what,what out of all these things we
talk about whistleblower tips,you know, with various
governments are just jumpinginto the key tam cases is what

(25:38):
where would greenwashing fit thebest? Because I've got a bunch
of environmental people saying,Oh, just, if I can understand
this, we'll find it. Yes, it'sthere.

Well, great.
And I'm always happy to talk toanyone who wants to wants to
throw some potentialhypotheticals around. And so
let's, let's take it one at atime. So the False Claims Act,
as you said, or key Tom lawsuitas another way of saying it was
originally created by AbrahamLincoln to stop civil war
profiteering. So there were thecompanies that were selling the

(26:13):
Union Army, sand, and pretendingit was sugar. You know, the
means that maybe change, butunfortunately, the fact hasn't
changed that we still have anumber of government contractors
that are selling the proverbialsand. And pretending like a
chair, when we're talking aboutgovernment contracts that then

(26:35):
touch on environmental aspects,that can start to be very huge
problem, obviously, you have,let's say, power power plants
that are not operating at thestandards that they claim to
eat, operating, and thencharging people money as if they
were, we have companies thatare, you know, charging for
cleanup, and not doing thecleanup. And we have, you know,

(26:56):
any of a variety of instanceswhere companies are not meeting
their obligations under contractto meet a certain level of
environmental protection or acertain level of environmental
cleanup, or mitigation, orwhatever it might be. If that's
true, and you have nonpublicinformation about it, you

(27:17):
potentially could file a claimon the government's behalf and
step into the shoes of thegovernment, as it were and file
a case in federal court wherethere are state equivalents for
some some states out there andfile a claim on the government's
behalf saying, hey, government,company A is cheating you,

(27:37):
here's all the ways that they'recheating it. Those cases are
False Claims Act cases, they arefiled under seal, which gives
the government time toinvestigate the claim, determine
if they think there's any meritto it. And ultimately make a
decision about whether they wantto take on the cases their own
or what's legally calledintervene in the case. And if

(27:57):
they do, government tends to wintheir cases, and companies tend
to settle at that stage. If theydon't, you, as the whistleblower
do have the right to bring thecase on your own, on what's
called a non intervened basis,those cases are very hard to
win, but not impossible. And,you know, it's certainly a way

(28:19):
to try to bring these casesforward. And that is it's we're
saying a very big differencebetween the False Claims Act and
the agency programs like the SECand such. If the SEC says no,
the SEC says no, I'm sorry, Idon't think there's any worth
your information, we're notgoing to act on it, you do not
have a private right of actionto proceed. And you're really

(28:41):
reliant on the government to dosomething. So that is a very big
difference. So that's what youcan sort of think about in the
environmental space for theFalse Claims Act for the SEC. It
is different, as you said,because in the SEC world, we're
essentially relying on a focuson investor harm, which

(29:04):
sometimes feels very weird,right, when we're talking about
what is ultimately environmentalharm, and oftentimes human
rights violations, which areusually tied up in environmental
harm. And it feels weird to talkabout the poor investors out
there. But it is worthremembering that both groups are
being harmed in different ways.

(29:25):
And for example, if there is amining company that operates in
a Latin American country thathas local laws, many of them do
that the community has toapprove before a mine can be
operated. And that miningcompany is telling its investors

(29:46):
that oh, yeah, no problem. Wehave community approval, whereas
actually the local community isfighting tooth and nail to stop
the mind because the mind isgoing to destroy, you know, the
local land that they depend on.
And it's going to Do rip out theforest or what whatever the
particular scenario might be,that's lying to their investors
and potentially a materialmisrepresentation to their

(30:08):
investors. And it's also verysignificant environmental harm.
So it's a mistake to see thesethings is is that different, I
think, or necessarily opposed.
And so I think it's importantthat we make sure that we, you
know, see them as part andparcel of the same thing. And it

(30:33):
is a way to get there. So, youknow, DNA, as you pointed out,
these days, every major companyhas what they call
sustainability reports, theyhave, you know, these reports
saying, look at all theseamazing things we're doing for
the environment, here's howwe're getting to carbon neutral,
here's how we are, you know,reducing our pollution, here's,
you know, all the ways we'rereducing plastic, whatever it

(30:54):
might be. And to the extent thatthose are lies, and they really,
you know, and they're hammeringthem home to their investors,
and maybe they're mentioningthem during their investor day
presentations, maybe they're,you know, tweeting about it,
maybe they're putting other, youknow, executives, LinkedIn,
whatever it might be, thatstarts to be potentially
misrepresentations that the SECstarts carrying about, and that

(31:17):
starts to then be something thatyou could potentially see a
whistleblower submission around.

So I just wanted to point out that I think the
potential impact is an importantthing to to mention, especially
distinguishing between key Tamand investment protection. In
the case of key Tom, what youcan recover is based, as I
understand it, solely on theamount of fraud, which,

(31:45):
especially for large companiesis unlikely to be significant
scale or as significant in scaleas market capitalization,
whereas with SEC fraud, if Iremember our last conversation
correctly,

Unknown (32:03):
when you deceive investors, what the SEC can seek
to recover is the additionalmarket capitalization that
arises from that deception. Andthat can be enormous. So

I wish it was I wish it was that much. And very
rarely are we going to see anenforcement action that's going
to be anywhere near that size, Imean, the SEC sets their
enforcement action. Recoverybased on all sorts of
complicated formulas, we'rewe're almost never going to see
a number that's going to trulyreflect the difference in market

(32:38):
cap. Only probably in like thereally like, you know, your
entire business is based uponthis one misrepresentation or
something like that, and eventhen it would be relatively
unlikely. Generally speaking,FCA recoveries are actually much
larger. And the reason for thatis the FCA provides that if a

(33:03):
company lies to the government,they're liable for treble
damages, for however much theycost the government plus
penalties. Nobody ever paystreble damages. To be clear, I
mean, usually, it's somewhere inthe one and a half to two range.
But still, depending on the sizeof the contract, that can be
just an enormous amount ofmoney. And depending on the

(33:26):
number of times the governor orthe number of times they submit
fake bills, or false bills ormisleading bills to the
government, the penalties canalso add up pretty significantly
as well. And so it's it's hardto sort of, say for sure, which
one is going to ultimately be a,you know, a bigger number. But

(33:48):
they are certainly significantand important penalties that
we're talking about.

Just quickly FCA is False Claims Act.

Yes. I'm sorry.
Yes. I will try not to speak inacronyms. It's very hard to
avoid sometimes.

Dina Rasor (34:02):
Well, I It's so so the listeners, you're saying
investors oil that they losemoney, that's their problem and
stuff. But you have tounderstand that there are good
investors like the state ofCalifornia pension fund, which
is Giganto. I mean, they theycan rule the world with what
they decide to fund or not. Butit also you have to understand

(34:25):
that investors as lifeblood ofthese people going forward. And
so you may not like the factthat to some rich billionaires
investing or somebody elseinvesting but there are these
funds to and mutual funds andall kinds of people that invest
in these these different things.
But what you need to realize isthat that is the fuel. So if a

(34:46):
company is going along andthey're greenwashing and they're
lying about it, and theirinvestors like oh, this is
great, I'm gonna put in moremoney. That is them getting
money under false pretenses totheir investors, which then they
go off and continue to do, youknow, crimes against the
taxpayer, and then theenvironment. But the investors

(35:08):
are the lifeblood. In otherwords, if you bring this forward
and you show the greenwashing islie is this that this stock will
fall? You know, because peoplewill be oh, wait a minute, you
know, you were you said in thisSEC report, and, you know, they
have the investor calls to whichI would always think, you know,
would be a place where theyprobably lied the most. And so I

(35:30):
just want want to thank peoplenot to be turned off that you're
going in doing this for theinvestors because if that
company like, like, say, anExxon or, you know, somebody,
something smaller, even me, eventhese people that are now trying
to take over solar from fossilfuel and stuff, if they make all

(35:50):
the problems or carbon capture,which is my bugaboo i It is
clearly the dumbest thing I'veever heard. And they lie so much
about how much carbon thecapturing.

So this is all very interesting to talk about
the abstract, but I think itwould be exciting for our
listeners to hear about anexample. So if there's one that
you think is particularlycompelling, we'd love to hear
about it. Yeah, sure.

And, you know, as, as you said, where we as a
team are very fortunate. Firstof all, to represent some truly
extraordinary clients, and, andalso to have had some, you know,
fairly fairly big successes, andcontributing to Eric's $1
billion, returned to the publicFISC. Yeah, and I think that is

(36:41):
important, right, we're talkingabout ultimately taxpayers money
is being misused. And the FalseClaims Act is the best tool we
have to return the money thetaxpayers spend on companies
that are overcharging them.
Fortunately, I should say, and,you know, I to get on my high

(37:03):
horse for a second, I think it'scompletely insane, that we
really don't teach the FalseClaims Act in law schools. I
personally remember learningabout the False Claims Act in,
you know, a throwaway comment inmy federal courts, you know,
textbook in one of my classes,and that's it. And yet it is the
tool that returns billions ofdollars to taxpayers every year

(37:26):
and is the best tool we have. Soone, relatively recent victory.
That I think is a reallyinteresting example of our case
was a group of oil companies inKorea, who I were, you know,
obviously, there are a number ofUS military bases in Korea. So

(37:48):
getting the contract to supplythe oil. And the gas to these
military bases was a hugecontract, and very lucrative.
And show in one instance,allegedly, what happened is a
group of oil companies gottogether in a room and divvied
up those contracts and decidedwho would bid on what contract,

(38:12):
how much they would pay, whowould supply the losing bid to
make it look like the winningbid was legitimate, how much
that losing bid would be for,and I, you know, divvied up the
territory accordingly. Well,this conspiracy is Bid rigging,
essentially conspiracy allegedlylasted for over a decade and

(38:35):
allow these oil companies tocharge the government something
like 200 times what, you know,the say Korean government was
paying for exactly the same oil600

was just pause on it 200 times.

So they were somewhat relying on the
ignorance of the US purchaserswho didn't know what oil should
cost in Korea, and somewhatrelying on the fact that there
were enough, you know, allegedco conspirators in the room. Um,
they made this whole deal looklegitimate. Finally, it was

(39:17):
Blair came forward and reportedon this conspiracy, and it
should be said that it's veryhard to catch Bid rigging
conspiracies, because usuallythey are, by definition,
essentially done in secret. Andyou really need an insider to
come forward. And of course,that's exactly what the False
Claims Act is designed toencourage. And so whistleblower

(39:39):
came forward my client, and webrought this information to the
government and this was anaction that also sparked a major
criminal investigation, becausethe contract was deemed to have
risen to a criminal level. And,you know, this is one of those
instances where I, you know, togive credit where credit was
due, come knees were actuallyquite smart about it looked,

(40:03):
looked at the evidencepresented, saw the writing on
the wall and settled reallyquite quickly. And all things
considered and and thegovernment was able to recover
$363 million in criminal andcivil penalties. And based on
this conduct over this decadelong conspiracy more than that

(40:26):
the effect has been enormous.
You may have heard about theprocurement. Oh, boy, what's it
called on the procurement TaskForce, there's a word in there
that I'm forgetting, that is nowfocused on finding these kinds
of big rigging conspiracies inprocurement. And particularly

(40:46):
with a focus on the defenseindustry, and has been actually
quite successful. In reallyfocusing the attention on
antitrust conspiracies likethis, in, in defense contracting
around the world, there's been anumber of follow on cases that
have happened, all growing outof the task force that was

(41:07):
created, after my client waswilling to come forward. So
we've seen the lasting impact ofthis case, in short of all
different arenas that you mightnot think of which has been
really great.

Dina Rasor (41:23):
And has been determined yet how much the
whistleblower gets on this. Yes.

So our client received a share of the civil
penalties, not the criminalpenalties. And so this was a
this was an intervened case. Andthe law provides that
whistleblower is entitled tobetween 15 and 25% of the inner

(41:51):
if of the amount recovered, ifthe case is intervened, and our
client was awarded towards thetop end of that range, out of
recognition of just the enormousimportance of his information,
as well as a number of otherfactors that led to the
government, recognizing howimportant it was.

Dina Rasor (42:11):
And that it's really important to say here that that
has, you know, when you I'vedone this some times in my
career to when you make awhistleblower, a millionaire on
this, other people start saying,wow, you know, I didn't, I was
afraid to come forward, butmaybe this is worth it. And, you

(42:32):
know, and that kind of thing, itsort of makes it much more
legitimate than just trying toflail away at the company. And
it also has a deterrent effect.
I always kept saying, especiallywhen I was doing DOD, key terms,
is I never Yeah, maybe I'd got200 million back that wasn't

(42:53):
just DOD, but 200 million back,but the different the, the
diversion and other as peopleare starting to say, oh, people
in companies are starting tosay, Gosh, everybody in this
around this conference table,somebody could go and make
themselves a million dollars andrat us out. It's kind of like
the mob. And the sense that the,you don't know what you have,

(43:18):
you've made them avoid. In otherwords, they'll either get
smarter at it, or they won't doit, as you know, they won't do
it as much. Or if you get a taskforce, like anything else. In
healthcare, now they've got aclass action suit and in
congressional hearings coming upon a health care thing I was
looking at, and boy, that is adeterrent. That is a deterrent

(43:40):
because they're like, Okay,across the industry, everyone's
like, I don't want to come upwith a $363 million, you know,
and so you never know how muchmoney you you on the side saved
by other people not doing thesame thing. At

that is absolutely right. That is
absolutely right. And I do wantto I want to pause for a second
on the question of whistleblowerawards. Um, it you know, these
numbers often sound quite largein absolute terms, and they are
absolutely in some someinstances, this is life changing
money. I mean, we have hadclients who have been in really,

(44:22):
really dire straits financially.
Oftentimes our clients are firedfor blowing the whistle for
coming forward. Sometimes theyare retaliated against and all
sorts of other ways. Oftentimes,unfortunately, our clients are
blackballed from their chosenindustry. You know, you train
your whole life to be an expertin whatever your particular
chosen field is, and suddenlyyou can't get a job doing it.

(44:42):
That's awful. And and thewhistleblower awards. It's it's
not an effective system, but itsometimes effectively operates
as unemployed. Have aninsurance, right? Because you're
probably never going to beworking again in your chosen

(45:02):
field if you're known as awhistleblower. Um, but the other
thing to say is just, it's nevergoing to work. If you as a
whistleblower, or whistlebloweronly because of the financial
awards, it's just not going towork. And the reason for that is
that being was was really hard.
I mean, it just truly is, it'slike, and I say this as a

(45:25):
whistleblower lawyer who lovesthis work, and I love the
whistleblower programs, and Ilove everything about it. I will
never sugarcoat this for anyone,it is hard, you are coming
forward, you're reportingagainst a company that might
represent your friends mightrepresent your family might
represent your community and allsorts of different ways. And

(45:47):
it's going to be a long slog, Iwish the government was in a
position to act a lot fasterthan they are, but they're not.
And that's just the truth of it.
And these cases tend to takemany years, a very, very fast
cases, three years, most of ourcases take significantly longer
than that, occasionally decades.
And that's a long time. That's along time. And if you're talking

(46:10):
about a False Claims Act case,there's a court seal in place,
which means you can't talk aboutit to anyone, you can't talk to
your family, you can't talk toyour friends, you can't tell
anyone about this major thingthat's happening in your life,
except for your lawyer. Andthat's a real emotional
challenge. So what we have foundover the years is without fail,

(46:34):
the whistleblowers who are readyfor this process are the ones
who are doing so out ofmotivation that they have to fix
the problem, that's wrong, andthey have to make it right. And
it has to be that deep,underlying just drive to fix
things and tell the truth thatcan sustain you throughout this

(46:56):
process. Because if you don'thave that, it's very, very hard
to do so. And we will turnclients down who come to us, if
all they're interested intalking about is the potential
reward at the end, because firstof all, you know, the odds are,
you know, quite honestly, notgreat. Most whistleblower cases
are not successful, we are moresuccessful than most firms out

(47:17):
there. But still, you know, notall of our clients are going to
recover. And, and I know that ifthat person is only focused on
the award, they're gonna hateevery single second of it, and
they're gonna hate me, andthey're gonna hate the
government, they're gonna hateeverything about it. And that's
just not gonna work. And I lovewhistleblowers and love working

(47:40):
with them. And I love theirpassion, and that drive and
their commitment and their truthtelling and everything about
that. And that's, that's whatmakes it work.

I just, I want to take a moment to just say, and
I've said it before, for ourlisteners, if if you've never
met somebody in a situation likethis, it is very difficult to
imagine what people like this,like.

Dina Rasor (48:06):
Yeah, I am, I actually wrote a whistleblower.
There's the organization Ihelped found Pogo project and
government oversight still has aversion of it, where I put a
list down of why you don't wantto do this. And whether it's key
Tam, or just plainwhistleblowing, and all the
negative things and I had staffcame to me and said, No one's

(48:27):
ever gonna blow the whistle. AndI said, Then, those people don't
want to, but I've probably Iprobably hundreds and hundreds
of whistleblowers have come tome over the course of 40 years.
And I always listen to what thefirst thing they say. And the
ones that there's sometimesthere's the sour grapes, you
know, the, you know, so and so,if they talk about what they

(48:49):
have done to them first, and notthe issue, then I might, you
know, or they aren't willing towrite out a two page summary if
it's just willing to do youknow, that the light bulb, but
also if they, you know, some ofthem was like, you made a lot of
money doing this, if that comesout of their mouth first. I just

(49:10):
realized they can't go thedistance because sour grapes,
and maybe getting money likeplaying the lottery. It doesn't
sustain you, but if I've gotsomebody on the phone, or it's
called me up, I am so mad at thefraud. I mean, it's the Boy
Scouts and Girl Scouts is what Ialways call them who have been
told ever since we were littleif if you just tell the truth,

(49:32):
you won't get spanked, which isnot true. You will get spanked
but you're just telling thetruth. But the people who are
outraged over the fraud, akaoutraged over the waste of
government money outrage overthe fact that you know, like
saying climate this is going tocause climate to get bad, you

(49:53):
know, to get a black eye orsomething. And so, you know,
what you were saying to me isalmost exactly what I tell
People who are saying they, youknow, people call me a pattern.
How do you know this was ablurs? Right? Is that got to be
passionate about the crime?
Absolutely. There's some crime,though

I do want to I want to make one. There's one
place where I think, you know, Ido want to add that we don't
only have Boy Scouts and GirlScouts for clients, I mean,
truly, one of one of theunderlying principles of the
False Claims Act is somethingthat was said on the

(50:32):
congressional floor as they weredebating it originally, which
is, it takes a road to catch arock. And there's some truth to
that, you know,

Dina Rasor (50:42):
sort of the Michael Cohen syndrome, which we can
bring out.

I mean, there's certainly something to be said
for that. Sometimes the peoplewho are going to know the
information that's necessary,the government are gonna have
their hands a little bit dirty.
But if you're a lower levelperson, let's say you're, you
know, if it's a Foreign CorruptPractices Act case, and a
concerned bribes paid to aforeign official for business
benefit, the people are gonnahave the best information are
probably the people who wereactually paying the bribes, they

(51:09):
probably weren't the mastermindsof the case, they were probably
doing so on someone else'sorders, where they're going to
be the people who are in theroom when those bribes were
paid. And, you know, we don't,we don't need Girl Scouts and
Boy Scouts to tell the truth, weneed people who are committed to
making sure the truth gets outthere. And then there's many
different people who can fallinto that category.

Dina Rasor (51:34):
Actually, when the key tam law was passed, during
the Reagan, Reaganadministration, William Fred
Smith was the attorney general.
And he was fundamentally againstit. And what he said immediately
is we're not doing this, we'rejust not doing this. And he got
more and more pressure, youknow, to go. But they saw it as
a very negative thing. And theytried when, when people would

(52:00):
come for it, I remember we hadsomebody from TRW, which is
another company. And he was, hewas their accountant. And his
name was Larry Ely, which wesaid, oh, we gotta go to this
guy just for his name anyway, ifyou're an accountant, but he was
involved in part of it, but notin the way, you know, not in the

(52:21):
not in the bigger way. But assoon as we gave it to the
government, the government wentafter him. And the beginning,
when you first started doing keytam suits, they would go after
your whistleblower. First,you've broken the law. Oh, my
God, we gotta go after you. Andit was only because Congress
just pounded on the JusticeDepartment that, you know, you

(52:45):
can't keep doing that. Thathappens. So that is, I love
that, over the course of allthese years, the now the DOJ
loves it. And what a lot ofpeople don't know is it's the
key tam suits that bring in themost money. The Justice
Department's, oh, you know, theFalse Claims Act, which has just
been supposed to do, they aren'tnearly have the, the efforts and

(53:08):
the trials and whatever to beable to bring in so the most of
the money they get back fromthat is through the key tam
lawsuit, whistleblowers. And

and is absolutely true. The Department
of Justice now really appreciatewas worse. And in fact,
recently, we've seen that aboutthree months ago, and the
Justice Department announcedthat they're going to create
their own whistleblower program,that is going to relate to any
violation that results incriminal forfeiture, which is a

(53:45):
very broad category. This, theyannounced it approximately three
months ago and immediatelyannounced they were going to go
into a 90 day policy sprint, weare just about at the end of
those 90 days. Show very soon, Iexpect that we will hear exactly
how DOJ envisions this lawworking. But it's a potentially

(54:09):
massive, massive whistleblowerprogram that could fill a lot of
existing gaps and otherwhistleblower programs. So for
example, one of our newestprograms and a program I spend a
lot of time working under arethese days is run by the
Department of Treasury andconcerns violations of the Bank
Secrecy Act, which are all thelaws that regulate banks and

(54:32):
other financial institutionsregarding their compliance
obligations to stop dirty moneyflowing through their system. So
it's the reason that we all showan ID when we open a bank
account, and it's the reasonthat banks have to file
suspicious activity reports whenthey see things that look
unusual or something they BankSecrecy Act also applies to

(54:52):
money services, businesses, andwhich include, you know,
essentially all the companieswhere you're trading money when
money is moving through With thesystem, and usually those, those
companies are going to fallwithin the Bank Secrecy Act, the
other half of the concernsviolations of sanctions. And

(55:12):
this was a program expansion wewere able to get after Russia
invaded Ukraine. And thegovernment was really aware of
exactly how important oursanctions regime is to stopping
international corruption andinternational money laundering
and the sort of general movementof dirty money everywhere. So

(55:34):
the sanctions law has beenenormously valuable
whistleblower program that isgoing very, very well. However,
there's an exception to thesanctions and the BSA law that
provides that whistleblowerscannot share in any amount
recovered and forfeiture, forsanctions violations,
oftentimes, the vast majority ofthe money that's going to be

(55:55):
recovered is going to beforfeiture. So for example, if
you know, of a sanctionedRussian, who, you know, has a
penthouse somewhere in New York,and you report that to the
government, the governmentseizes that penthouse that's
usually going to be forfeiture,it's not going to be a different
form of penalty. So right now,and that's excluded from the
sanctions whistleblower program.
However, if DOJ created theirforfeiture specific program,

(56:18):
suddenly we would have a wholeother avenue to report that
information and the governmentand, you know, particularly when
we're talking aboutwhistleblowers reporting on,
say, sanction individuals, thesewhistleblowers are not only
taking the sort of normalemployment risks and coming
forward, they're usually takingsome pretty, pretty serious
safety risks and coming forward.

(56:40):
And so I feel, you know,ethically, like, I need to be
able to tell those people, thatthere is a potential Avenue at
the end, where they're franklygoing to have the resources to
protect themselves, fromwhatever might come their way,
before they take on that safetyrisk. And so having something

(57:01):
like that would be enormouslyhelpful. Another just another
hole, I want to point out rightnow that I think this could
potentially fill is and theForeign Corrupt Practices Act.
So Foreign Corrupt PracticesAct, which is an extremely
important tool we have,particularly in industries, like
the extractive industry, wherewe have a huge problem with

(57:21):
bribery being essentially tiedup and environmental destruction
and human rights abuses. And wecan bring those as whistleblower
cases, as long as it's apublicly traded company, because
then this SEC has joinedjurisdiction with the Department
of Justice to we can bring thosecases the SEC, and then also

(57:43):
send them to the Department ofJustice for investigation. But
if it's a privately tradedcompany, and many very, very
publicly traded, privately heldcompany, and many very large
companies are, we cannot bringthat as a whistleblower case
right now. However, if DOJ wereto create their own
whistleblower program, suddenly,we would have the opportunity to

(58:03):
do so. So you can I mean, thoseare just two examples of how
valuable the DOJ program couldbe to fill in some of these gaps
in for, you know, some of thereal dirty money issues that we
have, which of course, fuel, youknow, environmental degradation
and all sorts of ways. Just realquick, just,

Dina Rasor (58:25):
just real quick, real quick, I just wanted to say
so people who might not knowwhat private and public
companies are, public companieshave a board of directors you
have to report to you have to doall the SEC things, much more
stuff. And then there's privatecompanies, and one of the things
that was so hard going after theTrump Organization is that it

(58:47):
was a private company. You know,Trump does not have a board of
directors, you know, I mean,he's, you know, he, in the sense
he puts his kids in, you know,this visors and all this guys,
but he, he is he was immune froma lot of the things that
protected, the, you know,nobody's investing in it. Well,
I guess that people areinvesting in hotels and things

(59:08):
like that, but it's not theusual thing where they're stock
and, and a board of directorsand, you know, Elon Musk is
getting couldn't get in trouble,because he's got a board of
directors, you know, no, we'renot going to give you $56
billion bonus this year, youknow, kind of thing. But public
companies are much easier to getat. And so I'm really happy to

(59:32):
hear that there's a possibilityof, of going after the private
companies because a lot ofpeople make these private
companies. It's really hard toget to them. I'm sorry, Greg, I
didn't mean to do. Likewise,

I wanted to clarify for our listeners that
extractive industries meansindustries like drilling for oil
drilling for gas, if you'redigging something up out of the
ground that is an extractiveindustry. Yeah. Oh, Um, so
normally we one of the ways thatwe wrap up an episode is to ask,

(01:00:08):
you know, what are you excitedabout? What's new in this area?
I feel like you've just told usall of that. So, in lieu of
that, what final words might youwant to give her audience?

Poppy Alexander (01:00:23):
You know, I think I think we are coming into
a period where we just reallyare beginning to appreciate what
suppliers and understand whatsuppliers, and we're seeing this
now, in so many differentindustries. And the optimist in
me hopes that we're also comingto a place where companies are

(01:00:44):
beginning to understand thevalue of whistleblowers as well,
and understand that they don'thave to be, you know, public
enemy number one, you know,smart companies would realize
that when a whistleblower comesforward, and says, Hey, guys, we
got a problem, they shouldn'tretaliate against that person,
they should say, fantastic.
Thank you for telling me aboutthis problem before the
government knocks on my door,let's fix it. Um, and I continue
to be optimistic that we willsomeday move towards that model.

(01:01:09):
In the meantime, before we getthere, and we can convince
corporations that that's theright approach. We have the
whistleblower programs, and wehave a growing with
whistleblower infrastructurethat's getting stronger and
stronger by the day. And it'scovering more and more bad
conduct by the day. And we havea growing recognition, I think,

(01:01:30):
from both government attorneys.
And the private bar was a blowerattorneys like myself, the
public at large, and what thatmeans, and I will say, you know,
just I started exclusivelyrepresenting whistleblowers in
2016, so about eight years ago,and in the eight years I've been

(01:01:51):
doing this work, thesophistication of people coming
in through the door really seemsto have grown fairly
significantly in terms of peoplejust having some basic
background understanding of whatthe whistleblower programs are
and how they work, I think theword is getting out. And that's
only in everyone's interest. Andto make sure that we have these

(01:02:14):
tools, these sort ofunbelievably powerful tools to
hold corporations accountable,to stop them from doing all the
bad stuff that unfortunately,they occasionally do. All the
environmental destruction, allthe human rights abuses, all the
other ways that new corporationscan act against the public
interest. We have these tools,and we should use them, and we

(01:02:39):
should use them for good. And weshould make sure that the right
cases are getting to thegovernment's IRS game to the
people who could actually dosomething about it. So I'm, I'm
really hopeful, honestly, aboutwhere we're at right now. And I
think we're going to just seethat continue to grow and
strengthen.

Dina Rasor (01:02:58):
And corruption is not going to go away, I think
that there is we are starting toas a country understand the
social problem of corruption,that when you know, when you
don't play by the rules, and youdon't do this, and you don't do
that our system doesn't work.
And it just gets worse andworse. And the more corruption
that get people get away withit, the more jaded, the public

(01:03:20):
becomes thinking the governmentcan't do this. So I'm really
glad that government is finallybeing smart, and getting very
smart lawyers like you and Ericcavion. And using your
knowledge, you know, to expandit so that it for sanctions and
everything else is becausethere's just people all just

(01:03:42):
say, Oh, it's all corrupt.
Everything's under the table.
It's not. But the guys who arethe people who are corrupt, get
away with it an awful lot. Andthat's why we need these laws.

Greg Williams (01:03:58):
Probably I think your words are about the most
optimistic note you've ever beenable to end an episode on. So
I'm very thankful to wrap thingsup. And to thank you for being
back with us tonight. And welook forward to speaking with
you again, whether it's 90 daysfrom now or some of the time the
future. So thank you very muchfor participating in finding

(01:04:21):
whistleblower partners. Andthanks for joining us again
tonight. Absolutely,

Poppy Alexander (01:04:26):
absolutely. And I'm honored to end on an
optimistic note, I'll be honest,that's not usually the role that
I played. But um, I do want tosay to your listeners that if
you are interested in learningmore about the whistleblower
programs, or the kinds of fraudthat are covered or anything
like that, I will put in a plugfor our website, which actually
has quite a wealth ofinformation. And our website is

(01:04:49):
www dot whistleblower dot law.
So hopefully not hard toremember and you can find a
whole lot more informationthere.

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A Law Firm Just for Whistleblowers - Poppy Alexander

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}A Law Firm Just for Whistleblowers - Poppy Alexander