Business leaders who don’t pay close attention to antitrust compliance may have recently received a wake-up call.
In January 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust division announced its first-ever whistleblower award. A bid-rigging scheme involving the online used vehicle auction platform EBlock led to a $3.3 million fine for the company. And under a new program, the employee who reported the scheme received $1 million.
The whistleblower’s payout was part of the new Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program, or AWRP, which the DOJ and the U.S. Postal Service announced in July 2025. The AWRP allows employees who report antitrust violations to collect between 15 and 30 percent of a government fine.
The AWRP gives companies further incentive to self-report potential antitrust wrongdoing—before one of their employees does.
“At the end of the day, it fosters compliance, and it increases attention on doing the right thing,” says R. Mark McCareins, a clinical professor of business law at the Kellogg School.
To raise the stakes further, companies risk missing out on Justice Department amnesty if a whistleblower flags possible antitrust violations even if the company self-reports minutes after the employee reporter.
“If they’re the second one to report by five minutes, they may not receive amnesty,” McCareins says.
So how can companies grapple with antitrust compliance in an era of massive rewards for whistleblowers who beat corporate self-reporters to the punch? Here, McCareins offers several recommendations.
Foster a culture of compliance
With employees more incentivized than ever to report concerns externally, McCareins says it has never been more critical to establish a strong compliance culture within a company.
A healthy compliance culture allows employees to feel comfortable reporting potential antitrust violations internally, knowing that they won’t be punished and that management will promptly investigate and get back to them.
“I would much rather, as the employer, have that situation than have the government hear about it before I do,” McCareins says.
Establishing this compliance culture starts with upper management, McCareins says.
The best way for business leaders to elevate compliance concerns, he says, is “if from the C-suite on down, they say, ‘This is really important to us. Revenue is important, but compliance is also important, and they institute a global policy that we’re going to commit the resources and take action.”
A culture of compliance also must be a part of every employee’s job description, according to McCareins. One metric in performance reviews could be whether the employee has taken online antitrust-compliance refresher courses or attended company-sponsored webinars on antitrust compliance.
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If focus on antitrust compliance within a company is spotty, on the other hand, then AWRP raises the odds that employees will take matters in their own hands and try to reap the monetary benefits of reporting potential misconduct to antitrust enforcers, he says.
“A ‘buy-in’ by all levels of the organization is mandatory for any antitrust compliance program to be successful,” McCareins says.
Conduct rigorous risk assessments
Beyond culture, companies should review their existing antitrust-compliance programs before revamping any compliance policy, according to McCareins.
Such a review should begin with performing an effective risk assessment to identify areas where antitrust-compliance breakdowns are most likely. Riskier areas might include outside sales forces, trade-association participants, and joint ventures.
Companies can then tailor their antitrust-compliance programs to fit the results of the risk assessment.
“Placing a microscope on the understanding and acceptance of existing compliance programs is a good place to start,” McCareins says.
Implement regular, multilevel training
To reinforce the importance of antitrust compliance—and clarify internal employee reporting procedures—antitrust compliance must be an ongoing priority, not a one-time onboarding task.
A fruitful training session might open with a pre-test. McCareins recalls working with one company in particular where the CEO asked for the pre-test to be so difficult that almost everyone on their team would flunk.
“They’re high performers, and if they think that they’re going to pass, they’re not going to pay attention,” McCareins recalls the executive saying. “So I’d like to send a very strong message at the outset that they really don’t know what they need to know yet.”
After the training, the company administered a test to determine which employees might require supplemental training—or perhaps face more-serious consequences, given the gravity of antitrust lapses.
“One slip-up by one salesperson could have a material effect on the company,” McCareins says. “So making sure everyone gets it right is critical.”
Beyond this initial in-person training, online refreshers every few months can help keep antitrust compliance top of mind. In addition, managers should receive training in what to do if they hear about potential antitrust violations through their subordinates, whether at the water cooler or at dinner with a customer, McCareins says.
“Now, ultimately, the answer might be, ‘Don’t do too much,’” he says. “‘Talk to legal.’ But that second level of training empowers people to take action.”
If, for example, an employee is at a trade-association meeting and a rival floats the idea of conspiring to shut out a buyer or fix prices, a well-run compliance program should help to nip such talk in the bud.
“It’s at that level, where the people who might ordinarily be exposed to those types of communications from competitors, where you want your team to be well-trained to say, ‘No, we’re not doing that,’ and to know what the next steps are to report it,” McCareins says.
Prioritize internal reporting
Given the new DOJ regulations, reporting as expediently as possible is essential. In-house counsel and human resources representatives in organizations need to be both prepared and empowered to follow up on potential antitrust violations as soon as they are reported by employees, according to McCareins.
That machinery should be ready to activate when there’s even a hint of ambivalence. For example, imagine a situation where a staff member attending a required antitrust-compliance seminar presents what they describe as a “real world” situation that, if true, might pose an antitrust problem. Taking that observation seriously and investigating the claim before the employee has a chance to whistle-blow is critical.
While investigating any matter, the reporting employee should be assured that their concerns are being heard and addressed immediately.
“A point of contact with the person raising the claim should be established so that the reporter feels ‘noticed and appreciated’ and involved in the investigatory process,” McCareins says.
Do your due diligence for acquisitions
Companies looking at acquisitions also need to investigate any potential exposure to antitrust noncompliance in the companies they are considering acquiring. After all, the DOJ’s first-ever AWRP award involved conduct that allegedly commenced at a company that EBlock acquired—and that didn’t let EBlock off the hook.
Closing a deal without addressing any fears that employees may have about potential antitrust violations could lead to them calling the authorities and setting off a federal investigation.
Companies should design a template for documenting possible legal risks uncovered by the due-diligence process, according to McCareins. Along with antitrust risk, reportable issues could include environmental liabilities, as well as pension and benefit matters.
This process can include tasking a due-diligence coordinator with gathering and identifying concerns before passing them along to a subject-matter specialist, who could collect the relevant documents and interview the employees involved.
Once the potential matter is fully investigated, the deal team could be advised of the outcome to determine which steps, if any, must happen to insulate the acquiring company from any assumed legal liabilities.
“Even in our evolving regulatory environment,” McCareins says, “agreements between competitor companies to fix prices or allocate customers will remain an active area of enforcement. It is still a hot topic.”