October 14, 2025
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has taken a bold new step in the fight against businesses that conspire with their competitors to drive up the cartel’s profits by suppressing competition with each other—offering potentially substantial financial rewards to individuals who provide information that leads to the successful prosecution of criminal antitrust violations. The new Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program reflects a growing recognition that individuals, rather than corporations, very often hold the keys to uncovering price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market-allocation schemes.
In this Q&A, Daniel McCuaig, a former DOJ Antitrust Division civil and criminal trial attorney, and Raymond Sarola, who represents whistleblowers in a wide range of matters before the DOJ and other federal agencies, discuss this new program and the substantial incentives it presents for people with nonpublic information who report it to the government.
Q: What is the DOJ Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program?
Dan: In May of this year, the DOJ’s Antitrust Division established a new program that uses significant financial incentives to encourage individuals to come forward with specific information about criminal violations of the federal antitrust laws. The Antitrust Division has long relied on its leniency program to generate the bulk of its successful criminal prosecutions by offering amnesty to cartel members that turn state’s evidence on a conspiracy of which the government was previously unaware. The program creates strong incentives for corporations to turn on their cartels and has been wildly successful for decades. But, for a number of complicated reasons, it’s been less effective lately. This new whistleblower program is designed to pick up the slack by appealing directly to individuals rather than corporations, by paying substantial financial awards to eligible whistleblowers who comply with the rules of the program.
Q: Who can be a whistleblower under this program?
Ray: Individuals who voluntarily provide original information to the Antitrust Division about “Eligible Criminal Violations” may be eligible to receive whistleblower awards. To constitute “original information,” a whistleblower’s information must come from their personal knowledge or analysis (not solely from public facts) and must not already be known to the government. And to be eligible for an award, the whistleblower’s information must lead to a resolution that includes a criminal fine (or related criminal recovery) of at least $1 million. Notably, a whistleblower does not have to be a corporate “insider.” Whistleblowers can be competitors or even industry experts whose independent analysis generates information that supports a finding of a criminal violation.
Q: What counts as an Eligible Criminal Violation?
Dan: Anything that the Antitrust Division prosecutes criminally can be an Eligible Criminal Violation. Most of the time, that means “horizontal” agreements between competitors to fix prices, rig bids, or split up markets among them—whether by product, by territory, or customer.
Eligible Criminal Violations also include certain other Sherman Act violations and federal criminal violations relating to government procurement or affecting the conduct of federal competition investigations.
Q: What is the difference between a civil violation of the antitrust laws and a criminal one?
Dan: Because the Antitrust Division has discretion when it comes to enforcing the antitrust laws criminally or civilly, it will be important for whistleblowers and their counsel to understand the distinctions the Division draws when exercising that discretion, and to present to the government information that supports criminal enforcement. Even price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market-allocation violations are regularly challenged civilly when they appear to incorporate novel characteristics or when the government otherwise is skeptical of its ability to clear the “beyond reasonable doubt” bar to obtain a criminal conviction. Because the Division’s civil enforcement actions are almost always tried before judges whereas its criminal prosecutions are tried before juries, understanding (and including in presentations to the government) contextual facts that increase the jury appeal of a case—even if not technical elements of the offense to be proved—can tip the balance to criminal enforcement.
Q: Are government employees eligible to be whistleblowers?
Ray: Certain government employees are excluded from this program, including those who are employed by the DOJ or other law enforcement agencies, or are a close family member of such a person. This exclusion is designed to bar federal employees or contractors whose job it is to identify or report fraud but should not bar other government employees whose job is unrelated to law enforcement.
Q: What if a whistleblower participated in the illegal activity?
Dan: A whistleblower who participated in the illegal activity may still be eligible to participate in this program. As with the Antitrust Division’s leniency program, the only individuals who are excluded are those who were clearly the leader or originator of the illegal activity or who coerced another party to participate in that activity. This exclusion does not bar employees of a company who were only following orders from being eligible whistleblowers, or even the price-fixers themselves—as long as they were just participants in the cartel and not its originators, leaders, or arm-twisters.
Q: How is the whistleblower award calculated?
Ray: The Antitrust Division has discretion to determine the amount of awards and has published a list of factors it will consider in setting those awards, which are between a presumptive minimum of 15% and a maximum of 30% of the recovered criminal fine. These factors generally relate to how helpful the information and other assistance provided by whistleblowers and their counsel were to the enforcement action and recovery. They are similar to the factors used by the government in determining awards under the False Claims Act and other agency whistleblower programs.
Q: Can a whistleblower submit information to the Antitrust Division anonymously?
Ray: Whistleblowers who are represented by counsel are permitted to contact the Antitrust Division anonymously through their attorney. This path is also provided by the SEC’s whistleblower program, and our clients have proceeded in this manner where appropriate.
About the Authors
Daniel McCuaig, a Partner in Cohen Milstein’s Antitrust practice, was a trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for more than a decade. There, he led investigation and litigation teams in both criminal and civil matters related to price-fixing, bid-rigging, and other antitrust law violations. He joined Cohen Milstein in 2019 and has continued to challenge anticompetitive conduct across a broad range of industries.
Raymond Sarola, Of Counsel in Cohen Milstein’s Whistleblower practice, represents whistleblowers in high stakes matters under all major federal and state whistleblower programs. He has extensive experience bringing False Claims Act lawsuits and working closely with federal prosecutors in Main Justice and across the country.
* Note: These FAQs are presented as general background on the DOJ Antitrust Whistleblower Program. Additional laws and rules may apply to any particular case.