The Department of Justice and eight states on Friday accused software company RealPage of unlawfully scheming to undermine competition among landlords and create a monopoly that harms millions of renters.<\/p>\n
RealPage \u201callows landlords to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,\u201d the Justice Department said in a civil complaint in U.S. District Court in North Carolina.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt bottom, RealPage is an algorithmic intermediary that collects, combines, and exploits landlords\u2019 competitively sensitive information,\u201d the antitrust lawsuit said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd in so doing, it enriches itself and compliant landlords at the expense of renters who pay inflated prices and honest businesses that would otherwise compete,\u201d the DOJ alleged.<\/p>\n
Attorney General Merrick Garland in a press conference Friday morning put it more bluntly: \u201cEverybody knows the rent is too damn high, and we allege this is one of the reasons why.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit marks the first time that the government has accused a company of working to systematically subvert the rules of free-market competition using mathematical algorithms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAntitrust law does not become obsolete simply because competitors find new ways to unlawfully act in concert,\u201d Garland said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Americans should not have to pay more in rent simply because a company has found a new way to scheme with landlords to break the law.\u201d<\/p>\n
The DOJ is joined in its lawsuit by the attorneys general of North Carolina, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington.<\/p>\n
RealPage, which is owned by the private-equity firm Thoma Bravo, did not immediately respond to CNBC\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, which Garland said followed a nearly two-year investigation, arrives in the middle of a U.S. presidential election cycle where high housing and rental prices have emerged as a key issue.<\/p>\n
Democratic nominee Kamala Harris last week unveiled an economic plan that aims to lower rental costs in part by cracking down on the companies behind price-setting tools that let landlords collude.<\/p>\n
The White House declined to comment on the DOJ\u2019s antitrust suit against RealPage.<\/p>\n
But it provided a statement from national economic advisor Lael Brainard, who said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris \u201cknow that too many Americans feel squeezed by high rents.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Biden-Harris Administration has made clear that no one should pay higher prices because of corporate lawbreaking and continues to support fair and vigorous enforcement of the antitrust laws to prevent illegal collusion,\u201d Brainard said.<\/p>\n
\u2014 CNBC\u2019s Eamon Javers contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Department of Justice and eight states on Friday accused software company RealPage of unlawfully scheming to undermine competition among landlords and create a monopoly that harms millions of renters. RealPage \u201callows landlords to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,\u201d the Justice Department said in a civil complaint in U.S. District Court in North Carolina. \u201cAt bottom, RealPage is <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6834,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}