U.S. v. EBlock Corporation

In November 2020, EBlock Corporation (“EBlock”) acquired the assets of a California-based auto auction company and retained numerous of its employees. Unbeknownst to EBlock at the time of the asset acquisition, employees at the California-based auto auction company (“Company A”) had been engaged in a long-standing conspiracy with a used auto wholesale company to rig bids for used vehicles and to artificially increase prices paid by legitimate bidders by placing fake (“shill”) bids during online auctions. EBlock learned about the bid rigging and the deceitful bidding activity around January 21, 2021. EBlock rejected this conduct and took concrete steps to stop it, but Company A’s legacy employees continued the problem conduct. Although EBlock did not stop the conduct immediately, the conduct stopped because EBLOCK’s repeated efforts made it stop. More information is available in the Statement of Facts attached to the deferred prosecution agreement. The charged period began no later than November 2020 and continued until around February 2022. EBlock entered into a deferred prosecution agreement on January 22, 2026. A pretrial conference is scheduled on January 8, 2027.