The Justice Department’s Antitrust Division filed a proposed consent decree to resolve the United States’ claims against LivCor, LLC, a Blackstone portfolio company, as part of its ongoing enforcement action in the Middle District of North Carolina against algorithmic coordination and other anticompetitive practices in rental markets across the country.
The proposed decree builds on the Justice Department’s success in obtaining proposed consent decrees in the same enforcement action against RealPage, Inc. and two other large landlords, Cortland Management, LLC and Greystar Management Services, LLC.
On January 7, 2025, the United States, together with its state co-plaintiffs, filed a complaint alleging that LivCor, along with five other landlords, actively participated in a scheme to set their rents using each other’s competitively sensitive information through common pricing algorithms.
As alleged in Plaintiffs’ complaint, LivCor and other landlords, including five codefendants, shared competitively sensitive data to generate pricing recommendations using RealPage’s algorithms, which also included anticompetitive rules that aligned their pricing. In addition, LivCor and other landlords discussed competitively sensitive topics—including pricing strategies, rents, and selected parameters for RealPage’s software—directly with each other.
“The Trump-Vance Administration is committed to an economy that works for all Americans,” said Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “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.”
If approved by the court, the proposed consent decree would require LivCor to:
- Refrain from using any anticompetitive algorithm that generates pricing recommendations using its competitors’ competitively sensitive data or that incorporates certain anticompetitive features;
- Refrain from sharing competitively sensitive information with competitors;
- Accept a court-appointed monitor if it uses a third-party pricing algorithm that is not certified pursuant to the terms of the consent decree;
- Refrain from attending or participating in RealPage-hosted meetings of competing landlords; and
- Cooperate with the United States’ claims against other defendants.
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As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed settlement, along with a competitive impact statement, will be published in the Federal Register. Any interested person should submit written comments concerning the proposed settlement within 60 days following the publication to Danielle Hauck, 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 enter the final judgment upon finding it is in the public interest.
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