DOJ announces amended RealPage antitrust suit (now against 6 landlords— incl Greystar)

One of the 6 landlords has already agreed to settle. I’m not a legal person so no idea what that means for the other 5 named antitrust parties. But overall I was excited to see this news about this case.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/big-landlord-settles-with-us-will-cooperate-in-price-fixing-investigation/

The Justice Department filed an amended complaint today in order to add the landlords as defendants. The landlord defendants are Greystar, LivCor, Camden, Cushman, Willow Bridge, and Cortland, which collectively “operate more than 1.3 million units in 43 states and the District of Columbia,” the DOJ said.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-six-large-landlords-algorithmic-pricing-scheme-harms-millions

Some details I found interesting re the proposed settlement agreement for the landlord who is settling:

The Justice Department also announced a proposed consent decree that, if approved by the court, would resolve its claims against Cortland, a landlord that manages over 80,000 rental units in 13 states. Under the proposed consent decree, Cortland would cooperate in the Justice Department’s investigation and litigation and be barred from, among other things:

• Using competitors’ competitively sensitive data to train or run any pricing model;
• Using third-party software or algorithms to price apartments without the supervision of a court-appointed monitor; and
• Soliciting, disclosing or using any competitively sensitive information with any other property manager as part of setting rental prices or generating rental pricing recommendations.