On July 8, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division (“Antitrust Division”) announced a new “Whistleblower Rewards Program” to incentivize individuals to report criminal antitrust violations and related offenses. The announcement comes on the heels of similar whistleblower programs adopted by the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice in 2024. Increased incentives for antitrust whistleblowing create heightened risks for companies that discover problematic conduct, particularly with respect to difficult decisions on whether to self-report the conduct or instead to focus exclusively on addressing the conduct internally.
The Whistleblower Rewards Program creates the potential for significant rewards for individuals that report qualifying conduct. When the Antitrust Division determines an award is appropriate, the presumptive award will be at least 15% of the recovered criminal fine, with a possibility that the award could be as much as 30% of the recovered fine. Antitrust fines can be substantial because they are typically set between 20% and 40% of the sales that were affected. For example, if an individual reports an antitrust violation that involved $20 million in sales over a three-year conspiracy, the criminal fine could be between $4 and $8 million, meaning the whistleblower will stand to collect a reward between $600,000 and $2.4 million.
The new Whistleblower Rewards Program has a few...
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