12 U.S.C. § 4204 — Ineligibility to file valid declarations

(a) In general. A declaration filed under section 4201 of this title and sections 4202 and 4203 of this title is valid unless:

(1) a current or former officer or employee of a Federal or State^* government agency or instrumentality filed it and learned or gathered all or part of its information while doing government work;

(2) a person^* who knowingly took part in violating 18 U.S.C. § 1517, any section of title 18 listed in 18 U.S.C. § 1833a(c), or other fraudulent conduct connected with the declaration filed it;

(3) an institution-affiliated party, as defined in 12 U.S.C. § 1813(u), filed it after withholding information that the party had a fiduciary duty to disclose during a bank examination or investigation authorized by 12 U.S.C. § 1820;

(4) a member of the immediate family of the person whose activities are the subject of the declaration filed it, or the Attorney General determines that the person whose activities are involved could benefit from the award; or

(5) it contains allegations or transactions already disclosed to a member of the public in a criminal, civil, or administrative proceeding; a congressional, administrative, or Government Accountability Office report, hearing, audit, or investigation; another government source; or the news media, unless the filer is the original source of the information.

(b) “Original source” defined. For subsection (a)(5), “original source” means a person who has direct and independent knowledge of the information in the declaration and voluntarily gave that information to the government before the disclosure.

(c) Notice of invalidity. If the Attorney General ever determines that a declaration is invalid under this section, does not meet 12 U.S.C. § 4202, or was disclosed in violation of 12 U.S.C. § 4203, the Attorney General must notify the filer in writing that it is invalid. The declarant then does not have any of the declarant’s rights listed in 12 U.S.C. §§ 4205 and 4206.