U.S. Accuses Software Maker RealPage of Enabling Collusion on Rents; The New York Times, August 23, 2024

Danielle KayeLauren Hirsch and David McCabe , The New York Times; U.S. Accuses Software Maker RealPage of Enabling Collusion on Rents

"The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit on Friday against the real estate software company RealPage, alleging its software enabled landlords to collude to raise rents across the United States.

The suit, joined by North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington, accuses RealPage of facilitating a price-fixing conspiracy that boosted rents beyond market forces for millions of people. It’s the first major civil antitrust lawsuit where the role of an algorithm in pricing manipulation is central to the case, Justice Department officials said."

Landlords Used Software to Set Rents. Then Came the Lawsuits.; The New York Times, July 19, 2024

Danielle Kaye, The New York Times ; Landlords Used Software to Set Rents. Then Came the Lawsuits.

"The use of the RealPage software in setting rents was the subject of a ProPublica investigation in 2022. Antitrust experts say the allegations in the lawsuits, if substantiated, paint a clear-cut picture of violations of federal antitrust law, which prohibits agreements among competitors to fix prices.

“There’s an emerging view that these exchanges of confidential business information raise significant competitive concerns,” said Peter Carstensen, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin focused on antitrust law and competition policy. The use of algorithmic software, he added, “speeds up the coordination and makes it possible to coordinate many more players with really good information.”"