WASHINGTON — A lawyer for RealPage, a company the Justice Department sued for allegedly helping landlords keep rents high, argued Monday the company doesn’t hurt competition and that quotes from executives in the lawsuit were “cherry-picked” and taken out of context.
The response was to the department and eight state attorneys general filing a lawsuit Friday in federal court in North Carolina accusing RealPage of helping landlords share non-public information about rents, vacancies and concessions aimed at keeping rents higher.
But Stephen Weissman, an outside lawyer for RealPage, argued the information sharing is legal because the company aggregates rental data from numerous sources rather than showing specific rates at rival properties.
The non-public rents that landlords actually charge shouldn’t help raise prices because they will never be more than advertised rents and could be less, he said.
“The software is not driving higher rates than what would happen in a competitive market,” said Weissman, a former deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission’s bureau of competition.
The type of lawsuit the department filed is complex and could lead to lengthy litigation. RealPage is willing to discuss changing its software to deal with the government’s concerns more quickly, Weissman said.
“We want to comply with the law,” Weissman said. “We believe strongly in the legality of our product, but if there are solutions here that allow us to continue innovating and…
