The best way to pay back victims of price-fixing is to let the first criminal who snitches lead the lawsuit against his old buddies.
SSRN · March 17, 2026 · 6327678
The Takeaway
Leniency programs currently offer whistleblowers immunity from jail, but they still face massive lawsuits from victims, which discourages them from snitching. This proposal suggests letting the snitch lead the legal battle for the victims and keep a cut of the settlement, using their inside evidence to maximize the payout for everyone.
From the abstract
The battle against the supreme evil of antitrust-cartels-is comprised of two main pillars: the leniency program and class actions. Leniency programs facilitate public enforcement. They offer immunity from prosecution to the first cartel member who discloses the cartel to the authorities, thereby creating a 'race to the authorities' amongst cartel members. Class actions enable private enforcement by allowing cartel victims' claims to be aggregated. Unfortunately, the interaction between these two