WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday settled claims against LivCor, a Blackstone property management firm, in its lawsuit alleging 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 they used software created by RealPage to unlawfully share non-public information about rental pricing. In the settlement, 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 for Americans. The Republican president faces low approval ratings on his handling of the U.S. economy, and has said his predecessor Joe Biden is to blame for high living costs.
"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 on Tuesday.
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 the company accepted a three-year monitorship and limits on how it uses data.
Cortland Management and Greystar Management Services have also settled with the DOJ.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington and Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Chris Reese)
