On August 1, 2024, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri unveiled a significant new initiative: Corporate Whistleblower Awards Program. This program represents a strategic enhancement to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) enforcement capabilities and aims to fortify corporate accountability across multiple sectors.

Foreign corruption. Some foreign corruption cases are covered by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) whistleblower program, but many of the foreign corruption cases we prosecute are not. Take our cases involving bribery at international commodity trading companies, which resulted in six corporate resolutions, convictions of 20 individuals, and over $1.7 billion in financial penalties including forfeiture. None of those companies issued securities in the United States, so none of them was covered by the SEC’s program. Our whistleblower program would reach that type of foreign corruption and help ensure accountability for corporate wrongdoers. This effort is all the more important given the recent enactment of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act—which we plan to vigorously enforce, especially now that the President signed a bill earlier this week that will make it easier for us to proceed with successful prosecutions.

Crimes involving financial institutions. Financial institutions are the first defense against illicit finance, and we want whistleblowers to report abuses of the financial system that are not covered by existing whistleblower programs. This includes cases involving obstruction or defrauding financial regulators. Cases like Binance—a cryptocurrency exchange that did business in the United States but failed to register with financial regulators and comply with U.S. law. And it includes efforts to access services from U.S. financial institutions through fraud, like Danske Bank, which did business with U.S. financial institutions by misrepresenting the nature of anti-money laundering controls it had to address certain high-risk customers.

Corrupt conduct here in the United States—such as where a company bribes a government official to win a contract—and health care fraud involving private insurers. Fraud on federal health care benefit programs is already covered by the Civil Division’s qui tam program—and we have no intention of interfering with that highly successful program. But there is no comparable whistleblower program for fraud involving private insurers, even though estimates show tens of billions of dollars in fraud each year.

The newly introduced Pilot Program is designed to incentivize whistleblowers to report corporate misconduct, particularly in areas not previously covered by existing whistleblower programs. This initiative underscores the DOJ’s commitment to tackling corporate crime with greater precision and effectiveness.

The Pilot Program offers monetary rewards and protections for individuals who report corporate wrongdoing in these specified areas. The goal is to encourage insiders with critical information to come forward, enhancing the DOJ’s ability to uncover and address corporate misconduct.

Jeff Newman JD MBA, represents whistleblowers nationwide relating to Medicare and Medicaid fraud, under the state and federal False Claims Act (Qui Tam) laws as well as whistleblowers in major claims under the SEC, CFTC and FINCEN whistleblower programs. He can be reached at Jeff@JeffNewmanLaw.com or at 617-823-3217