Locke Lord Dallas Partner Brad Weber Quoted by Law360 Outlining DOJ’s Civil Antitrust Lawsuit Against RealPage

Dallas Partner Brad Weber, Co-Chair of Locke Lord’s Antitrust Practice Group and Artificial Intelligence Industry Group, was quoted by Law360 outlining the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) civil antitrust complaint against RealPage, a provider of property management software, data analytics and services to manage rental properties and real estate, which accuses the company of using an unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing. Weber notes that the DOJ’s complaint alleges “rule of reason claims” instead of “per se price-fixing claims” under the Sherman Act, which signals that the DOJ is unlikely “to bring additional criminal claims.”

“In order to convict [for a] criminal violation [under the] Sherman Act, you have to show horizontal agreement between competitors,” Weber says. “If the DOJ had that evidence, they would have alleged a horizontal price-fixing claim in the civil complaint, and they chose not to.”

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