(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Justice and eight U.S. states filed suit Friday against RealPage Inc. for an alleged anti-competitive practices that hurt renters.
The Justice Department sued RealPage in North Carolina alleging the company’s software, which helps landlords determine rental prices for their properties, decreases competition and inflates rental costs. The Justice Department was joined by the Attorneys General of North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington,
The civil antitrust lawsuit alleges RealPage violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
“Americans should not have to pay more in rent because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said. “We allege that RealPage’s pricing algorithm enables landlords to share confidential, competitively sensitive information and align their rents. Using software as the sharing mechanism does not immunize this scheme from Sherman Act liability, and the Justice Department will continue to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws and protect the American people from those who violate them.”
Earlier this month, former Virginia governors Bob McDonnell and Jim Gilmore and former state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli wrote a letter to Republican attorneys general asking them not to join DOJ lawsuit against RealPage Inc.
“We ask that you choose not to… [sign] onto an unjustified, anti-free market suit, which would create pricing knowledge gaps – discouraging future building and investing in the housing industry and making today’s problems worse, not better,” they wrote.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the company’s software was unfair to renters.
“By feeding sensitive data into a sophisticated algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, RealPage has found a modern way to violate a century-old law through systematic coordination of rental housing prices — undermining competition and fairness for consumers in the process,” she said. “Training a machine to break the law is still breaking the law.”