Abigail Slater, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said, “Competing companies must make independent pricing decisions, and with the rise of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools, we will be at the forefront of vigorous antitrust enforcement.”
RealPage is a provider of commercial revenue management software and services for the traditional multifamily rental housing industry. As alleged in the plaintiffs’ complaint, RealPage’s revenue management software relied on non-public, competitively sensitive information shared by landlords to set rental prices. RealPage’s software also includes features designed to limit rental price gouging and otherwise align pricing between competitors. Additionally, RealPage has hosted meetings of competing property management companies where competitively sensitive information was shared.
If approved by the court, the proposed consent judgment would require RealPage to:
- Stop your software from using competitors’ non-public, competitively sensitive information to determine rental prices in runtime operations;
- Stop using active lease data for the purposes of training models built into the software, limit model training to historical or backward-looking non-public data that is at least 12 months old;
- Do not use models that determine geographic impacts narrower than the state level, which is broader than the markets alleged in the complaint;
- Remove or redesign features that limit price reduction or align pricing among competing users of the Software;
- Stop conducting market surveys to collect competitively sensitive information;
- Avoid discussing market analysis or trends based on non-public data or pricing strategies in RealPage meetings related to revenue management software;
- Accept a court-appointed monitor to ensure compliance with the terms of the consent judgment; And
- Cooperate in United States litigation against property management companies that use its software.
As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed agreement, along with a competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any interested persons should submit written comments regarding the proposed settlement within 60 days after publication to Danielle Hawk, Acting Chief, Technology and Digital Platforms Section, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 450 Fifth Street NW, Suite 7050, Washington, DC 20530. At the conclusion of the public comment period, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina may render a final decision finding that it is in the public interest.
RealPage is a provider of revenue management software and services headquartered in Richardson, Texas.
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