Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United States Postal Service have issued the first-ever whistleblower reward. The whistleblower received $1 million for providing information that led to the prosecution of a $16 million used car auction bid-rigging scam.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division’s Corporate Whistleblower Awards Program made the $1 million payout as its first-ever award. The information provided by the whistleblower helped the DOJ resolve criminal antitrust and fraud charges against EBLOCK Corporation. EBLOCK is a company that offers an online auction platform for used vehicles.
According to a DOJ press release, in November 2020, EBLOCK acquired another online auction platform for used vehicles. After the acquisition, EBLOCK “did not take immediate action … to end the bid-rigging conspiracy and fraud” at the unnamed company, according to the deferred prosecution agreement.
Prosecutors stated that from November 2020 to February 2022, individuals at the company that EBLOCK acquired conspired with another company. They used “shill bidding” to suppress and eliminate competition for used vehicles on the online auction platform acquired by EBLOCK. By not acting, fake bids continued to be placed, artificially increasing the prices of used vehicles.
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