The Department of Justice (DOJ) received more than 200 whistleblower tips since it launched its long-awaited Corporate Whistleblower Awards (CWA) Pilot Program on Aug. 1, according to the program’s Acting Director Patrick Gushue in a Compliance Week exclusive.
Gushue will speak on a Compliance Week webcast about the CWA Pilot Program this Thursday at 11 a.m. E.T.
The pilot program provides a pathway for corporate insiders to report misconduct in four areas: foreign corruption, crimes involving financial institutions, U.S.-based corruption, and fraud involving private insurers not covered by qui tam recovery under the False Claims Act. The 200+ tips received so far span all four types, Gushue said.
On the webcast, Gushue will discuss the background of the CWA program’s inception, explaining why the DOJ decided to create it. He will also expound on the four main subject matter areas and why the DOJ chose to prioritize them.
For would-be whistleblowers, Gushue will go over program eligibility requirements; what the tip intake process looks like; confidentiality protections ensured by the program; and how awards will be determined. Of note: there will be a cap on award payments, unlike the whistleblower award calculation used by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
According to a DOJ fact sheet, whistleblowers may receive up to 30 percent of the first $100 million in net proceeds forfeited, and up to 5 percent of any net proceeds forfeited between $100 million and $500 million.
Reporting to companies’ internal reporting systems might factor favorably into the calculation of a CWA award. Under the pilot program, an employee who reports misconduct through internal company systems can still seek and obtain a whistleblower award from the DOJ—provided the tip is submitted within 120 days of the initial internal report to the company.
Further, if a company receives a whistleblower’s internal report and then self-discloses the allegations to the DOJ’s Criminal Division within 120 days (and before the agency reaches out to the company), the company remains eligible for the Division’s voluntary self-disclosure program.
Compliance Week reporter Aaron Nicodemus will interview Gushue about the monetary award cap for whistleblowers, the 120-day clock on eligibility for potential benefits for both the company and the whistleblower, and more.
Gushue will be continuing this conversation at Compliance Week’s 2025 Cyber Risk & Data Privacy Summit on Feb 10-11 in Alexandria, VA.
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