The U.S. Justice Department announced last week it settled claims against LivCor, a Blackstone property management firm, in a lawsuit that alleged competing landlords colluded to raise rents by sharing rental pricing information through a software platform.
In early January, the DOJ sued six large landlords, including LivCor, alleging the companies used software created by Richardson, Texas-based RealPage to unlawfully share non-public information about rental pricing.
In the settlement, the DOJ said that LivCor agreed not to set prices based on other landlords’ non-public information or use third-party software to do so.
DOJ Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater said the deal is part of President Donald Trump’s bid to bring prices down.
LivCor Says it Remains Focused on Serving its Residents
“Landlords across America are on notice that the competition laws protect renters from the harms caused by competitors sharing competitively sensitive information or aligning prices, whether through an algorithm or otherwise,” Slater said last week.
LivCor settled without admitting to the allegations, Reuters reported.
“We remain as focused as ever on serving our residents,” a LivCor spokesperson said.
The DOJ sued RealPage last year, in its first case tackling alleged algorithmic collusion, a practice where competitors feed non-public pricing data into software that generates recommendations. The DOJ settled with RealPage last month after it accepted a three-year monitorship and limits on how it uses data.
Greystar Management Service and Cortland Management also have settled with the DOJ.
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