Antitrust Investigation Process: From the Tip to the Evidence

The antitrust investigation process tests information about an agreement against the communications, business records and transactions that show what happened. You may know why a company stopped bidding for a customer, who shared a rival’s prices or how an auction platform gave favored bidders access to confidential information. That knowledge can explain a decision that looks ordinary in the sales figures. The work is connecting the agreement inside the business to the competition it took away.

What Happens When You File a Whistleblower Complaint?

An antitrust tip starts with an assessment of what the information shows and what investigators can establish from it. Under the Antitrust Division and Postal Service’s whistleblower agreement, the Division evaluates whether information concerns a qualifying criminal violation, is specific and credible, and describes conduct the agencies do not already know about. Whether your information meets that test is something we assess with you.

Investigators then need evidence beyond the account itself. Documents, data and independent confirmation connect a witness’s explanation to the transactions. Someone who understands how the business works can explain a complex transaction, interpret a key record or identify another useful line of inquiry. The whistleblower agreement expressly recognizes that continuing contribution.

Investigators can interview witnesses, obtain business records and conduct searches. The FBI and other investigative agencies gather evidence, while Justice Department prosecutors bring criminal cases.

The 2018 construction-bidding review explains how reports and leniency contribute to an investigation:

Reports and leniency can expose an existing cartel by giving investigators direct evidence of the agreement.

What Can Help the Antitrust Division Understand My Report?

The useful information connects who communicated, what they agreed, the product or customer involved, and how the agreement changed actual bids or prices. A person who knows the instructions behind the transactions can explain that connection.

In procurement, the losing bid may be part of the arrangement. Suppliers can agree who will win, submit deliberately losing bids or stay out of a competition altogether. A purchasing official sees the submitted offers. An employee inside a bidder may know who chose the winner before those offers arrived.

The Justice Department’s guide to bid rigging and price fixing identifies repeated winners, bid rotation, losing bidders receiving subcontracts, and identical calculations or mistakes in competing bids as signals worth examining. The communications behind those bids explain how the arrangement worked.

We work through that connection with you: the agreement, the instructions and the transactions that followed. Your knowledge of the business helps us identify what each record means and which parts of the account need independent confirmation.

An investigation combines the report with records and witnesses that can explain the conduct, as the evidence page describes.

For someone who understands the bids, the missing piece may be the conversation that determined them.

What the EBLOCK Investigation Revealed

The EBLOCK account shows how bid limits, access permissions and transaction records can develop an initial report into an investigation.

In its announcement of the criminal information and deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department describes software commissioned to place fake bids under the names of real auto dealerships. Legitimate buyers faced fake competition designed to push up the price. The dealerships whose names appeared on those bids had not consented to their use.

For an insider, the relevant knowledge could concern the bidding instructions, the special permissions or the software’s purpose. Each explains a different part of the same transaction.

Why Bid Patterns Need the Business Behind Them

Bid data can identify a pattern for investigators to examine. Understanding that pattern requires knowing how the market works and what the participants agreed to do.

In construction, that means understanding the tender, the firms bidding, their subcontracting relationships, prices and the work specified. The review proposes connecting tender records with information about the quantities, materials and technology the job requires. That gives investigators a way to examine the bids alongside the work being priced.

The same lesson applies to the evidence an insider brings us. Bid records show who offered what. Instructions and communications can explain why a bidder chose that price, stayed out or expected work from the winner. The investigation connects the commercial pattern to the people making those decisions.

The Reporting Route Depends on the Conduct and Your Role

The Antitrust Division and Postal Service operate a reward program for eligible original information about qualifying criminal violations with identifiable harm to the Postal Service. We examine that connection and the information you hold with antitrust whistleblower lawyers who understand the program.

A government customer’s payment can raise a separate False Claims Act question. We examine who paid for the contract and how the agreement between suppliers affected that payment.

Your own part in events and leniency are matters to discuss with our whistleblower experts and antitrust whistleblower lawyers. We work through them with you as part of assessing the case.

How Military Fuel Bids Became a False Claims Act Case

The Hanjin agreement required a $6.182 million FCA payment and cooperation through documents and employee access, connecting the report to further investigation.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. For a procurement insider, we examine how the agreement between bidders connects to the claims for government money.

A Whistleblower Award for the EBLOCK Tip

The EBLOCK investigation ended in a criminal resolution and an announced $1 million payment to the reporting whistleblower.

You Know Why the Bid Changed

Our whistleblower experts can develop your account from the first report through the records and witnesses that explain it.