New 'Stop Stealing our Chips Act' Offers 10-30% Payouts to Whistleblowers Reporting AI Chip Smuggling

This bill, officially titled the “Stop Stealing our Chips Act,” is all about national security and corporate accountability. It establishes a new incentive program within the Department of Commerce, specifically designed to catch companies illegally shipping advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips and other controlled technology to U.S. adversaries. Think of it as putting a bounty on illegal tech exports.

The Bounty: 10% to 30% of the Fine

If you have inside information—what the bill calls “original information” derived from your own knowledge or analysis—about an export control violation, and that tip leads to the government collecting a fine of over $1 million, you could be in for a significant payday. The Secretary of Commerce must pay the whistleblower between 10% and 30% of the total collected fine. For example, if a company gets hit with a $20 million fine based on your tip, you could walk away with anywhere from $2 million to $6 million. This incentive is clearly designed to motivate people with high-value, specific knowledge to come forward, even if the violation happened before this law was enacted, as long as the report is made now.

Who Gets the Award and Who Doesn't

This program isn't open to just anyone. The bill defines a "whistleblower" as any individual providing information, but it has some important exclusions. Federal employees acting within their official duties are explicitly excluded from receiving an award. Also, if you’re an officer, director, or internal auditor responsible for compliance at a company, you’re generally disqualified. However, there’s a critical exception: if you report the violation internally and 120 days pass without the company acting, or if you believe the company is actively obstructing an investigation, you are back in the running for an award. This is a crucial detail for compliance professionals, giving them a clear path to report externally if their internal channels fail.

Your Job Is Safe—Mostly

One of the biggest hurdles for any whistleblower is the fear of losing their job. This bill tackles that head-on by creating strong protections against employer retaliation. Employers are prohibited from firing, demoting, suspending, or harassing you for reporting a possible violation, whether you report it internally to your employer or externally to the Department of Commerce. If your employer retaliates, you can sue them in federal court. If you win, you are entitled to reinstatement, legal costs, and double back pay with interest. This is a serious deterrent against corporate retaliation.

Crucially, these protections apply even if you report the violation internally to your company first, before ever talking to the government. The only major caveat is that the protections do not apply if you knowingly report false information. The clock for filing a lawsuit is also generous: up to six years after the violation, or three years after you knew about the retaliation, but no more than ten years after the violation occurred.

How the Program Pays for Itself

To ensure the program is sustainable, the bill establishes a new “Export Compliance Accountability Fund.” This fund is the bank account that pays the whistleblower awards and finances the program’s operations, including the secure online reporting portal the Secretary must create within 120 days. The fund is credited with the fines collected from enforcement actions that were initiated thanks to a whistleblower’s original information. This means the program is designed to be self-funding—the bad actors pay for the rewards given to those who expose them—and it must maintain a minimum balance of $100 million or enough to cover all pending awards, whichever is greater.