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New DOJ-USPS Whistleblower Rewards Program For Antitrust Tips
07/15/2025On July 8, 2025, the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced the launch of a whistleblower rewards program in partnership with the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS” or the “Postal Service”) and the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (“USPS OIG”) (the “Program”). The Program establishes a formal mechanism to incentivize individuals to report antitrust and related federal criminal violations that harm the USPS, which can be potentially quite broad in that the program includes violations that harm USPS revenues, its supply chain, and its property. The USPS program reflects an expansion of DOJ’s broader strategy to incorporate individual whistleblower incentives across multiple enforcement domains and, importantly, represents the first time the Antitrust Division has offered potential payouts to whistleblowers.
Purpose And Scope Of The Program
The Program is designed to uncover and deter anticompetitive and fraudulent conduct that negatively affects the USPS. Specifically, it targets offenses such as price fixing, bid rigging, market allocation, and other federal criminal violations that “impact, distort, or undermine the competitive process” or result in financial harm to the Postal Service. The Program is formalized through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Antitrust Division, USPS, and USPS OIG (the “MOU”). Importantly, as discussed further below, MOU acknowledges USPS’s statutory authority under 39 U.S.C. § 2601 and § 404(a) to pay rewards for actionable information, and outlines operational procedures for receiving, reviewing, and processing whistleblower claims.
The Antitrust Division’s Program follows the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Pilot Program launched by DOJ’s Criminal Division in August 2024, which focuses on offenses involving financial institutions, foreign and domestic corruption, and healthcare fraud.
Whistleblower Eligibility And Award Criteria
Whistleblowers may receive up to 30% of the monetary penalties collected by DOJ, provided that the information they submit results in a successful prosecution or settlement yielding at least $1 million in fines or penalties.
To qualify for an award, a whistleblower must meet the following criteria:
- Be an eligible source (e., not someone who coerced others to participate in the illegal activity or was the leader/originator of the scheme);
- Voluntarily submit original information not previously known to the government and not required by a preexisting legal duty;
- Avoid relying on privileged information (g., attorney-client communications) unless permissible under the crime fraud-exception or other exceptions under state attorney conduct rules;
- Not act in a compliance, audit, or investigatory capacity; and
- Report an eligible violation, including:
- Criminal violations of Sherman Act sections 1, 2, and 3;
- Federal crimes committed to further or hide Sherman Act violations;
- Federal crimes involving public procurement at any government level; and
- Federal crimes affecting federal competition investigations or proceedings.
USPS Legal Authority And Discretion
The decision to partner with USPS is significant in that it provides the Antitrust Division with a means to compensate whistleblowers. Unlike the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), whose whistleblower programs rely on express statutory mandates and self-funding mechanisms established by Dodd Frank (specifically 15 U.S.C. § 78u-6(g) for the SEC and 7 U.S.C. § 26(g) for the CFTC), the DOJ’s Antitrust Division lacks standalone authority to issue financial rewards. Instead, the Program leverages USPS’s authority under 39 U.S.C. § 2601, which permits the collection and retention of fines, penalties, and forfeitures related to postal matters.[1] In contrast, when the DOJ’s Criminal Division launched its own whistleblower pilot program in 2024, it tied awards to restitution and forfeiture recovery—mechanisms that the DOJ may have viewed as more readily available in fraud and corruption cases.
By anchoring the whistleblower reward mechanism in USPS’s statutory authority, the DOJ has effectively created a functional and immediate funding pathway in the absence of broader Congressional authorization. This statutory nexus likely explains why USPS was selected as the inaugural context for antitrust whistleblower rewards—and suggests that any future expansion beyond postal-related conduct would require new statutory authority or a similarly empowered agency partner.
Under the Program, the Antitrust Division has the sole discretion to determine whether a particular disclosure constitutes an “eligible criminal violation.” Moreover, whistleblowers must “reasonably articulate violations of law affecting the USPS, its revenues, or property,” meaning they must provide sufficiently detailed and substantiated allegations to allow the U.S. Postal Inspection Service Official to conclude that the USPS has suffered an “identifiable harm.” However, the harm need not be material or otherwise pose any substantial detriment to the Postal Service, which could trigger payouts for relatively minor or technical harms to the Postal Service. As a result, the potential scope of the Program is broad, as it may reach “industries where the USPS procures goods and services either directly or indirectly.”
Conclusion
The creation of the Program represents a significant development in federal antitrust enforcement, both in scope and in statutory innovation. By leveraging USPS’s existing authority, the DOJ has introduced a pragmatic workaround to the structural limitations that have historically prevented direct whistleblower compensation.
By offering financial incentives to individuals who report anticompetitive conduct and related criminal violations that harm the USPS, the DOJ is reaffirming its commitment to uncovering complex, concealed forms of corporate misconduct that might otherwise evade detection. The Program not only supplements the Antitrust Division’s longstanding leniency policy directed at corporate self-reporting but also mirrors broader enforcement trends favoring individual whistleblower engagement as a powerful enforcement tool.
Importantly, in its public statements, the Antitrust Division specifically identified the healthcare and agriculture sectors as industries of particular concern[2]—sectors historically prone to price manipulation, collusion, and procurement fraud. Businesses operating in these areas, especially those contracting with or supplying services to USPS or other federal agencies, should review this program and evaluate the strength of their internal reporting framework and compliance processes designed to identify and address antitrust-related risks.
Footnotes[1] Although § 404(a)(7) lacks direct interpretive case law, decisions such as Sokolich v. U.S. Postal Service have interpreted § 404(a)(8) to give the USPS broad discretion to offer and pay rewards for information on postal law violations. 2006 WL 1650809 (N.D.N.Y. June 15, 2006).
[2] Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department’s Antitrust Division Announces Whistleblower Rewards Program | United States Department of Justice
