Cushman & Wakefield was amongst six giant landlords sued by the Justice Division over alleged anticompetitive practices in housing rental markets on Tuesday, increasing the DOJ’s first case alleging algorithmic collusion.
The DOJ and a coalition of states sued in North Carolina in August, accusing property administration software program firm RealPage of letting landlords collude by sharing their pricing info with the corporate’s software program, which then recommends lease costs.
RealPage has denied the allegations, and is in search of to have the lawsuit dismissed.
The amended lawsuit additionally accuses Cushman, Greystar Actual Property Companions, Blackstone’s LivCor, Camden Property Belief, Cushman’s Pinnacle Property Administration Companies and Willow Bridge Property Co. of utilizing RealPage to unlawfully share private details about rental pricing.
The landlords additionally shared pricing methods with opponents by way of calls and person teams hosted by RealPage, the DOJ stated.
A spokesperson for Cushman stated that Pinnacle is solely a property supervisor and doesn’t personal properties or set pricing.
Greystar denied participating in anti-competitive practices and stated it could defend towards the claims.
Cortland Administration has agreed to settle the claims, the DOJ stated.
“We believe we were only able to achieve this result because Cortland has invested years and significant internal resources into developing a proprietary revenue management software tool that does not rely on data from external, non-public sources,” Cortland stated in an announcement.
The opposite firms didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Illinois and Massachusetts joined the lawsuit on Tuesday. The alleged coordination possible harmed renters in native housing markets in these states and California, Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, in keeping with the lawsuit.
