At the American Bar Association’s 39th National Institute on White Collar Crime, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the formation of a Department of Justice (DOJ)-run rewards program for whistleblowers.
“The premise is simple,” Monaco said during her remarks in San Francisco on March 7, 2024. “If an individual helps DOJ discover significant corporate or financial misconduct—otherwise unknown to us—then the individual could qualify to receive a portion of the resulting forfeiture.”
The program is part of the DOJ’s increased interest in creating corporate cultures of compliance, Monaco said. She further stated that the DOJ had already established “guardrails” for the pilot rewards program.
“We’d offer payments: only after all victims have been properly compensated; only to those who submit truthful information not already known to the government; only to those not involved in the criminal activity itself; and only in cases where there isn’t an existing financial disclosure incentive—including qui tam or another federal whistleblower program,” Monaco said.