June 3, 2025
William C. Smith & Co. will be stepping out of litigation accusing the company of using property management platform RealPage to conspire with other landlords and fix the price of rentals in the D.C. area, after agreeing to reform its business practices and shell out over $1 million.
D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb unveiled the settlement Monday, calling it a clear win and commending W.C. Smith for “putting an end to its anticompetitive practices and cooperating with my office to reach this agreement.”
The settlement does three main things. First, it obligates W.C. Smith to pay $1,050,000 to the D.C. government, which will go toward civil penalties, money to affected residents and legal fees. W.C. Smith must also change its rent-pricing practices to ban the use of software that “relies on any nonpublic or confidential data from other companies” and refrain from encouraging anyone else to use software like RealPage to set rent prices.
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The District of Columbia is represented in-house by Brian L. Schwalb, Will Stephens, Adam Gitlin, Mehreen Imtiaz and Ashley Walters of the D.C. Office of the Attorney General, and by Emmy L. Levens, Robert A. Braun, Zachary Krowitz, Laura K. Follansbee, Alexander J. Noronha and Aaron J. Marks of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.
Read Landlord To Quit Pricing Software To Escape Antitrust Suit.