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RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) — A federal judge approved a settlement agreement Tuesday between the federal government and rental company LivCor.
The federal government sued RealPage — a company that provides pricing software to landlords — in August 2024, before later tacking on additional property management companies, claiming their use of the RealPage software is depriving renters of fair competition and creating collusion between landlords.
The landlords, who would normally be competing with each other, submitted private rental data about occupancy and rental prices to RealPage, the Justice Department claimed in its amended complaint. RealPage then used that data to establish rental pricing recommendations, and was effectively able to set prices instead of the free market determining rental rates, the federal government and co-plaintiff states claimed.
LivCor, a Blackstone portfolio company that owns and manages apartment complexes, reached an agreement with the federal government in December 2025. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Osteen Jr. — a George W. Bush appointee — upheld the settlement in a final judgment.
The agreement, which requires LivCor to stop using nonpublic data from other landlords to determine its rental pricing and demand, will expire within four years. The four years can be shortened to two years if the Justice Department informs the court that “the continuation of this final judgment is no longer necessary or in the public interest.”
The company is allowed to create its own software to determine rental prices based on information from its own properties, but is not allowed to use data from other companies or landlords, or give other property managers or owners nonpublic rental data. The company can also change to another revenue management system, but that system cannot use nonpublic data to generate rental prices, pool data from properties that have different owners or use an algorithm that has been trained on private pricing data from another property.
“This final judgment should be interpreted to give full effect to the procompetitive purposes of the antitrust laws and to restore the competition the United States alleges was harmed by the challenged conduct,” the parties said in their proposed order.
LivCor also can’t use a system that financially rewards it for accepting recommended rental prices. The company has to notify the government before using another revenue management system.
It is also barred from asking for nonpublic data from other property managers or owners — including by calling around, taking market surveys, having private or industry meetings or by sharing documents — and is required to develop an antitrust compliance policy, train employees on it and hire a chief antitrust compliance officer. For the years that the agreement is in effect, LivCor must submit an annual report confirming that it is upholding the policy and training staff on it.
Representatives for LivCor did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
“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,” said Abigail Slater, former assistant attorney general of the of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, at the time the agreement was reached.
Real estate giant Greystar Management Services has also settled its case with the federal government, agreeing to stop using nonpublic data to determine rental prices. So has Cortland Management.
Landlords Camden Property Trust, Cushman & Wakefield Inc., Pinnacle Property Management Services, Willow Bridge Property Company remain as defendants in the case, as does RealPage.
The federal government has also reached a settlement agreement with RealPage, but the court has yet to approve it. In filings, the government says its agreement with RealPage will limit its use of nonpublic data and restrict its ability to share that data between landlords, preventing it from contacting nearby landlords to make recommendations for rental prices. If the settlement is approved, the Justice Department said, a landlord’s own data should dictate recommended rental rates, not shared data from their competitors.
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