Just over six months after unveiling its Whistleblower Rewards Program (the Program) in July 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ), Antitrust Division has already demonstrated the value of this new tool in identifying criminal antitrust violations and holding companies accountable for collusive conduct.

On January 29, 2026, the Antitrust Division announced the Program’s first-ever reward, a $1 million payment to a whistleblower who provided information that brought to light a bid-rigging and fraud scheme at used vehicle auction operator, EBLOCK Corporation. The payout highlights the new Program’s potential to fuel the Antitrust Division’s investigation and prosecution of antitrust and related criminal offenses across a broad range of industries, as well as the reporting of offenses by company insiders and observers. Indeed, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi touted the Program’s inaugural award as underscoring “the indispensable role whistleblowers will continue to play in the [Antitrust] Division’s criminal enforcement program.”¹

The Whistleblower Rewards Program

DOJ and the U.S. Postal Service (the Postal Service) jointly launched the Program in July 2025 to incentivize timely, voluntary reporting of potential antitrust violations. Under the Program, a whistleblower who voluntarily reports original information to the Antitrust Division about criminal Sherman Act violations or other crimes related to public procurement or cartel conduct (e.g., wire fraud, obstruction, false statements) may be eligible to receive at least 15% and up to 30% of an eventual criminal fine, in cases resulting in fines of $1 million or more. The Program sets forth eligibility conditions, voluntariness requirements, and parameters for what qualifies as “original” information.² The upshot is that qualifying whistleblowers may receive hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, creating a compelling incentive for individuals with knowledge of wrongdoing to report directly to DOJ.

Notably, the Program supplements but also creates tension with the Antitrust Division’s longstanding Leniency Policy for corporations and individuals. Under that policy, companies (and qualifying employees) can avoid prosecution when they are first to voluntarily disclose collusive conduct and fully cooperate with DOJ, assuming other conditions are met.³ Companies that self-report illegal activity unknown to the Antitrust Division stand to benefit from more favorable treatment (Type A Corporate Leniency) than those that self-report after a competitor or individual reports first (Type B Corporate Leniency). The Program’s financial incentives thus add another potential impediment to a company benefiting fully under the Leniency Policy. As DAAG Assefi recognized in announcing the EBLOCK whistleblower reward, “the race is faster now, because employees and their attorneys are incentivized to blow the whistle and beat their companies to the [Antitrust] Division’s doorstep.”⁴

Unlike the Leniency Policy, the potential benefits of the Program are not limited to companies or individuals engaged in the alleged wrongdoing. That is, non-participants in the illegal activity who have original information may be incentivized to report to DOJ. And the financial incentives of the Program, which the Postal Service is statutorily authorized to fund, are potentially available so long as the illegal conduct “affect[s] the Postal Service, its revenues, or property,” though “the harm need not be material or otherwise pose any substantial detriment to the Postal Service.”⁵ In other words, even a loose nexus to the Postal Service – such as incidental use of the mails as in the EBLOCK scheme – could trigger the financial incentives of the Program.

The EBLOCK Resolution

EBLOCK came under DOJ scrutiny primarily because of collusive and fraudulent conduct by legacy employees of a used vehicle auction company that EBLOCK acquired in November 2020.

According to the deferred prosecution agreement filed in the Central District of California, the acquired company had been engaged in a used vehicle bid-rigging scheme with employees of a co-conspirator company since 2015, which EBLOCK did not initially know about. The scheme continued after EBLOCK’s acquisition and included the acquired company and co-conspirator company exchanging bid information and allocating bids between them, coordinating to systematically place “shill bids” to inflate prices, and sharing profits from their illegal conduct. When EBLOCK learned of the scheme in January 2021, it took steps to end the conduct but did not fully stop it until February 2022. DOJ and EBLOCK agreed that this conduct constituted violations of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and wire fraud.⁶

The Antitrust Division acknowledged certain considerations informing its decision to agree to a one-year deferred prosecution agreement rather than charging the company, including that EBLOCK inherited the illegal conduct and timely cooperated with DOJ after learning of the investigation. The resolution takes into account that although EBLOCK did not self-report the conduct (which could offer greater discounts from applicable fine calculations), it gave fulsome and timely cooperation to investigators, made improvements to its company compliance program and internal controls, and committed to continuing to cooperate with the Antitrust Division in its further investigation of non-EBLOCK-employed individuals and companies involved in the conduct. EBLOCK agreed to pay a $3.28 million criminal fine and implement additional remedial measures, including enhancements to its corporate compliance program. In connection with the resolution, the whistleblower who reported the conduct received the $1 million reward under the Program for bringing the illegal activity to DOJ’s attention.  

Practical Implications

The EBLOCK resolution and the Antitrust Division’s first whistleblower reward offer practical lessons for companies operating in competitive markets.

First, the risk that antitrust violations will be detected and investigated has increased. 

The Program’s inaugural $1 million reward shows that whistleblower incentives are real, not theoretical. They also build on the Antitrust Division’s historically successful Leniency Policy – long a key tool for uncovering collusion that can be difficult to detect – by extending reporting incentives beyond companies to insiders, competitors, and other market participants. Existing anti-retaliation protections under the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act further lower personal risk for reporting employees. The speed with which this matter progressed from a whistleblower tip to a deferred prosecution agreement and a substantial reward also shows that credible tips can quickly lead to enforcement.

Second, the range of matters that can trigger whistleblower incentives may be broader than many assume.

Reward eligibility turns in part on whether the conduct affects the Postal Service, and DOJ has stated that this does not require material harm. In practice, routine use of the mails in furtherance of a scheme likely suffices, creating a relatively low threshold for the Program’s application. Because the Antitrust Division enforces antitrust laws across a wide array of industries, companies in virtually any sector should assume employees or competitors with evidence of anticompetitive conduct may now have a financial incentive to report it.

Third, the Program heightens the tension between the motivations for company insiders to report internally versus reporting to DOJ.

The Antitrust Division’s Leniency Policy continues to provide powerful incentives for companies to self-report misconduct, but the whistleblower reward framework introduces a new dynamic: employees and their counsel may now have a financial reason to approach DOJ first. That proverbial “race to the Division’s doorstep” can affect a company’s ability to qualify for the most favorable form of leniency. Companies that learn of potential cartel conduct internally may face greater pressure to investigate and make disclosure decisions promptly.

Fourth, robust and credible antitrust compliance programs are more important than ever.

Companies should ensure that their antitrust compliance programs are current, well-resourced, and consistently implemented. This includes effective internal reporting channels, strong non-retaliation messaging, and prompt, well-documented internal investigations of competition-related concerns. Ensuring employees have clear pathways and protections for raising internal awareness is especially critical to counterbalance the significant financial incentives to report externally. DOJ’s 2024 updates to its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs in Criminal Antitrust Investigations (the subject of a prior alert) underscored the importance of effective internal reporting mechanisms and serves as a useful guide in assessing the strength of a company’s compliance program.

Finally, acquisition diligence warrants particular attention.

The EBLOCK matter illustrates how antitrust exposure can be inherited through corporate acquisitions. DOJ appeared to credit EBLOCK’s lack of involvement in the original misconduct and its subsequent cooperation, but that did not eliminate criminal exposure or financial penalties. Targeted antitrust diligence, integration-phase compliance reviews, and documentation of those efforts can meaningfully strengthen a company’s position if legacy misconduct later rears its head and an employee blows the whistle.