Antitrust Reporting Deadlines: One Cartel, Different Clocks

There is no single antitrust whistleblower deadline. We assess the reward program’s internal-report timing, any company disclosure and the dates of the suspected cartel with you. If you know who arranged the bids or why a competitor received confidential prices, we connect that knowledge to the reporting opportunity and assess the timing with you.

A whistleblower reward, a buyer’s damages claim and a False Claims Act case each pay for something different. That is why the date of the conduct is only part of the picture. We examine what happened in the business alongside when you learned about it and any report you already made.

CAARA Timing and Your Employment Dates

We assess questions under the Criminal Antitrust Anti-Retaliation Act with you and antitrust whistleblower lawyers. Whether CAARA’s 180 days run from a termination notice or the last day worked is one of those questions. We also address CAARA federal court timing after 180 days from a complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

What Is the Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program?

The Antitrust Whistleblower Rewards Program can pay eligible individuals who voluntarily provide original information about antitrust crimes and related offenses. The Justice Department and its postal partners operate it under a written program agreement. Qualifying criminal recoveries must reach at least $1 million, and the case must involve identifiable harm to the Postal Service.

Where an award is appropriate, the presumptive total reward is 15% to 30% of the qualifying money recovered. Multiple whistleblowers share that total. The department decides awards based on the information and assistance provided, including reliability, completeness and help explaining complex transactions.

Price fixing, bid rigging and market allocation are among the conduct the program addresses. Its agreement also covers specified federal crimes affecting public procurement and competition investigations. For an insider, the useful connection is between the agreement among competitors and what the businesses actually did: the price they quoted, the bid they submitted or the customer they agreed to leave alone.

Internal Reporting and the 120-Day Provisions

The reward agreement’s 120-day provisions make your internal reporting history part of our review. We work through what you reported, when the company learned about it and how you obtained the information.

The program also distinguishes original knowledge from information the agencies already have. A compliance employee who learned about a scheme through an internal review and a salesperson who heard competitors agree on prices present different questions under the agreement.

Leniency and the Marker Date

Our whistleblower experts bring in whistleblower lawyers to assess how a company leniency marker and your own involvement affect the reporting timetable.

What Is the Statute of Limitations for Antitrust Claims?

We review the statute of limitations for antitrust claims with you. We assess the dates of the conduct and any potential claim with antitrust whistleblower lawyers who know cartel cases.

Government Bid Rigging and False Claims

Bid rigging that produces knowingly false government claims can support a False Claims Act case. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. The connection to government payments makes the purchasing records especially important.

Hanjin Transportation agreed to a $6,182,000 False Claims Act settlement over alleged bid rigging on contracts supplying fuel to U.S. military bases in South Korea. Its settlement agreement identifies the whistleblower case behind those claims. The Hanjin case illustrates a government-claims route whose filing requirements are separate from internal-reporting clocks.

The S-Oil complaint described inflated payments after an apparently lower winning bid; the payment and report dates remain separate facts.

The alleged discount existed inside the cartel’s inflated prices. For someone who knows the fuel supply arrangements, the bids and the government contracts tell different parts of the same story. We examine that connection when assessing whether a procurement scheme supports a whistleblower case and which timing questions belong to it.

How Do I Know If I Have Enough Original Information to Support a Successful Whistleblower Application?

The value of information depends on what it explains as well as when it is reported; the evidence page describes that work.

The program agreement recognizes both independent knowledge and independent analysis. We assess what you observed, the communications you know about and the transactions they explain. That gives the timing review a concrete subject: who agreed to what, and when the agreement reached an actual bid or sale.

EBLOCK’s Reward and the Auction Behind It

The EBLOCK award announcement dated January 29, 2026 records a $1 million payment without setting another whistleblower’s reporting deadline.

The EBLOCK case connects the auction mechanism with a dated investigation and resolution, without supplying a deadline for a different report.

The EBLOCK record distinguishes November 2020 acquisition, January 2021 discovery and February 2022 cessation; those are separate events when constructing a reporting timeline.

For an auction insider, those are different records and different decisions: access permissions, bidding software and communications outside the system. They explain why the dates of management knowledge and operational changes can matter alongside the dates of sales.

Your Information Has a History

Give our whistleblower experts the dates of the conduct, reports and employer responses so the different reporting questions can be addressed together.