Eric R. Havian

Eric R. Havian's clients in the KBR case knew different parts of the contractor's supply system. Geoffrey Howard, an information-technology employee in Kuwait, wrote programs that exposed overordering. Zella Hemphill Anderson, working in Iraq, oversaw the checks for existing supplies before new purchases. Their lawsuit alleged that KBR bought materials the Army did not need, then charged the government the cost plus profit, despite a contract requiring it first to look for excess stock already in the country.

The clients alleged that KBR's inventory system concealed supplies that could have filled new orders. Electrical wire was one example: the company kept buying it despite having decades' worth on hand. After the Justice Department declined to intervene, Havian and lawyers from Constantine Cannon, Goldberg Kohn, and Phillips & Cohen pursued the case privately. They reviewed more than 2.7 million documents and took sworn testimony from dozens of witnesses.

The litigation lasted twelve years and settled for $108.75 million in 2023, with approximately $31.5 million for the whistleblowers. Havian credited his clients with securing a public recovery that had proved rare among Iraq-war contracting cases. The government monitored the litigation and participated in the settlement, although the private team had carried the discovery and trial preparation. Continuing cases after federal declination has become a substantial part of his practice: private counsel must arrange the expert work and bear the risk of trial. His recoveries in these cases are among the largest in that category.

From Prosecution to Whistleblower Counsel

Havian graduated near the top of his Stanford class in 1977 and worked as a consultant at Bain & Company before attending Harvard Law School. He graduated cum laude in 1981 and was one of the two oralists on the team that won the Ames Moot Court competition. A fellowship at the Center for Law in the Public Interest brought him into contact with John Phillips, who later helped develop the strengthened federal False Claims Act.

As a lead Assistant United States Attorney in San Francisco, Havian prosecuted defense-procurement fraud. When he and another prosecutor, Stephen Meagher, considered starting a private firm, he contacted Phillips hoping for referrals. Phillips instead invited them to open a San Francisco office of Phillips & Cohen. Havian later built and led the whistleblower practice at Constantine Cannon before joining Whistleblower Partners in 2024. He is a partner in its San Francisco office.

Technical Evidence, Different Claims

For scientist Robert Ferro's case against TRW, later acquired by Northrop Grumman, Havian needed top-secret compartmented clearance to examine evidence concerning military and intelligence satellites. Ferro alleged that the contractor knowingly supplied defective components. As lead counsel, Havian could review the classified documents only in a secure facility. The case settled for $325 million in 2009, with $48.7 million for Ferro.

Other cases involved the prices and quality of routine public purchases. Havian helped win a $224 million verdict against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power over electricity charges to schools and other public agencies. The team compared the utility's elaborate cost accounting with the actual cost of serving those customers. In the separate California false claims case against the James Jones Company, he was lead counsel for municipalities challenging high-lead waterworks parts sold for use in their drinking-water systems.

In health care, Havian represented David Barbetta in the DaVita dialysis case, which resolved for nearly $400 million over alleged kickbacks. He is also one of the lead lawyers representing Benjamin Poehling in the UnitedHealth risk-adjustment case. That complaint alleges that inaccurate information about Medicare Advantage patients' diagnoses generated inflated government payments. In his own writing about the case, Havian has explained the financial incentive: insurers receive higher payments for patients recorded as sicker, making the support for a diagnosis important to both the clinical record and the government's bill.

The Korean Fuel Bids

Havian served as co-lead counsel in Koo v. GS Caltex, alleging that South Korean refiners rigged bids to supply fuel to American military installations in Korea. The case combined competition law and False Claims Act enforcement. The government's purchasing process depended on rivals submitting competitive prices; the alleged coordination among those rivals prevented that process from working. The litigation produced more than $160 million for the United States and an award of roughly $37 million for the whistleblower.

Across more than three decades, the cases in which Havian has served as counsel have returned well over a billion dollars to public funds. His clients — engineers, accountants, executives, and physicians — have received some of the largest whistleblower awards after bringing forward information that put their careers at risk.

Advising the Insider

Havian has taught fraud seminars as an adjunct at Stanford and Berkeley law schools, served as a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard, and written about whistleblower law for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. In a 2012 commentary, he argued that "stopping fraud shouldn't be a partisan issue." The statute's history supported his point: Abraham Lincoln signed the original False Claims Act, and presidents of both parties later signed measures strengthening it. A whistleblower's political allegiance is not a condition of bringing a case.

His writing also addresses the decisions that precede a lawsuit. In a 2023 Journal of Accountancy guide coauthored with Chris McLamb, the lawyers described clients who had first tried to resolve problems inside their organizations. They urged accountants to document the suspected violation, their judgment in evaluating it, the steps taken to raise it, and management's response. Before disclosing confidential information, they advised considering the governing professional duties and consulting counsel.