- The Department of Justice accused software company RealPage of unlawfully scheming to undermine competition among landlords and create a monopoly that harms millions of renters.
- RealPage “allows landlords to manipulate, distort, and subvert market forces,” the Justice Department said in the federal civil antitrust lawsuit.
- Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “Everybody knows the rent is too damn high, and we allege this is one of the reasons why.”
I don’t see the problem here. Yes, I’d rather see landlords themselves punished for price fixing, but that’s unlikely to happen because it involves prosecuting a huge number of defendants on charges that are hard to prove. Depriving them of software that’s tailor made to facilitate price fixing seems like a good first step. Who knows, a successful suit against the software company could end to making it a lot easier to sue the landlords who used it.