On July 8, 2025, the Department of Justice Antitrust Division (the Division) announced a new program that could provide monetary payouts to individuals who report criminal antitrust violations. The program, described in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among the Division, the U.S. Postal Service, and the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General (USPS OIG), will be a partnership among those agencies, building upon the Postal Service’s pre-existing involvement in antitrust investigations. Maximum rewards under the program could amount to 30% of any criminal fine. Following another year of relatively minimal criminal antitrust fines, Abigail Slater, Assistant Attorney General for the Division, stated that the program is intended to “create a new pipeline of leads from individuals with firsthand knowledge of criminal antitrust and related offenses.”
To be eligible for a financial reward, the reported conduct must:
- Be Submitted by an Individual. Only individual whistleblowers are eligible to collect a reward. Though a whistleblower may have participated in the violation, they must not “clearly” be the “leader or originator of the activity.” It is not clear what kind of protections a whistleblower may receive where they participated in the reported conduct or how this would affect eligibility for any reward. Additionally, the conduct must be originally reported; if the Division is already aware of the conduct through a leniency applicant or otherwise, the reporter will not be eligible for an award.
- Be Criminal and Related to the Sherman Act. The reported conduct need not be limited to criminal antitrust violations, which traditionally include price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market or customer allocation. Federal criminal violations committed to effectuate, facilitate, or conceal criminal Sherman Act violations, or federal crimes targeting or affecting federal, state, or local public procurement, are also sufficient.
- Have Impacted the Postal Service. The program applies to whistleblower reports that USPS OIG “determines reasonably articulate[] a violation of law affecting the Postal Service, its revenues, or property.” The MOU does not further define the types of conduct that this definition contemplates or provide any insight into how broadly violations “affecting the Postal Service” will be construed. DOJ’s announcement, however, noted that the program is targeted “across industries from healthcare to agriculture.” While the Postal Service must incur an “identifiable harm” from the violation, that “harm need not be material or otherwise pose any substantial detriment.” Again, the MOU leaves the contours of this requirement undefined; it is not clear what type of harm may rise to the level of “identifiable” and what type of harm may slip through the cracks.
- Result in a Criminal Fine of at Least $1 Million. To cash in on a report, a whistleblower must report a violation that results in a fine of at least $1 million or the equivalent under a deferred prosecution or non-prosecution agreement. Individuals are eligible to collect up to 30% of the fine at the Division’s discretion. Under the program, the Postal Service will also collect a portion of the fine.
Compared to the False Claims Act landscape, where whistleblowers have long been eligible to collect compensation under a clear statutory framework, this announcement leaves many questions unanswered. For example, in addition to uncertainties around the scope of covered violations, the MOU is silent on when whistleblowers would be paid relative to their report or how the Division would determine the amount of the award. Moreover, since antitrust investigations often last for many years, chances are that any award could be a long way down the road for a whistleblower. Though much remains unclear—especially for participants in anticompetitive conduct that are not yet able to assess the risk versus reward of reporting—the program nonetheless creates a financial incentive for whistleblowers to report on what they perceive to be suspicious conduct within their companies. Where fines for criminal antitrust violations may reach into the tens of millions of dollars or more, whistleblowers may be willing to roll the dice for the chance to collect up to 30% of a sizeable fine. And the Division is making reporting easier, too: to “facilitate reporting” under the new program, the Division established a new online portal where whistleblowers can submit information.
As the program’s impact shakes out in the coming months and years, it remains critical for companies to ensure that their compliance programs contain clear and easy-to-follow internal reporting procedures and that those procedures expressly include potential antitrust violations. Proper internal reporting policies may increase the likelihood of a company learning of a potential violation before a whistleblower reports conduct to the government. In addition, companies should continually refresh antitrust training, compliance materials, and safeguards to prevent Sherman Act violations in the first place.
[View source.]
