By Mike Scarcella

WASHINGTON, May 15 (Reuters) - Equity Residential EQR.N, Camden Property Trust CPT.N and nine other owners or managers of large-scale, residential apartment buildings have agreed to pay more than $218 million to settle allegations that they conspired to inflate rental prices in the multifamily housing market across the United States.

Here are the details:

• The new class action settlements were filed on Thursday in federal court in Tennessee, where apartment owners and managers are accused of using technology company RealPage’s revenue-management software to unlawfully fix rental prices for millions of Americans. RealPage, also a defendant, has denied wrongdoing.

• Equity is paying $56 million, and two other defendants — Camden and Mid-America Apartment Communities — are each paying $53 million. They denied any wrongdoing. The proposed accords require court approval.

• This is the second major wave of settlements in the antitrust litigation, which was filed in 2023. Overall, settlements have reached nearly $360 million with 37 defendants. Property management giant Greystar last year agreed to pay $50 million to settle claims against it.

• Under the agreements, nonpublic data from the settling companies will no longer be used by RealPage in competitor pricing recommendations, the plaintiffs’ lawyers told the court. The plaintiffs lawyers said the new settlement “fundamentally changes how these settling defendants participate in the multifamily housing market.”

• Last year, the U.S. Justice Department settled with RealPage in a related lawsuit over allegations it helped landlords fix rents by sharing pricing information through its software.

Read more:

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Realpage agrees to limit data collecting to settle DOJ rental price fixing case

Greystar agrees to $50 million settlement in RealPage rental pricing lawsuit