USA – GEORGIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Lohr Beck and Kasey Clark, King & Spalding LLP
the 11th Circuit reversed the district court, thereby resurrecting the case. ( Inform Inc. v Google LLC et al., No. 21-13289, 2022 WL 3703958 (11th Circuit, 26 August 2022) .) While the 11th Circuit admitted that the amended complaint was lengthy and not a “paragon of clarity,” it found that the complaint “did not prevent the district court or the Google defend - ants from understanding the basis of Inform’s core antitrust claims for monopolisation offences, exclusive dealing, and tying.” (Id. at *4.) Finding that Inform’s amended complaint provided Google sufficient notice of the claims against it, the court remanded the case back to the Northern District of Georgia for further proceedings. Several months after the 11th Circuit’s remand, the case was transferred to the Southern District of New York and consolidated for pretrial proceedings in the MDL captioned In re Google Digital Advertising Anti- trust Litigation, MDL No. 3010 . Inform filed a motion for partial summary judgment in June 2025, which remains pending before the Southern District of New York. (See Inform’s Motion for Partial Summary Judg - ment, In re Google Digital Advertising Antitrust Liti- gation, No. 1:21-md-03010-PKC (S.D.N.Y. 20 June 2025) .) In its motion, Inform argues that the issue of Google’s liability for maintaining a monopoly and for unlawful tying were already decided in an enforcement action filed in the Eastern District of Virginia by the DOJ and state attorneys general. (See USA v Google, LLC, No. 1:23-CV-00108-LMB-JFA (E.D. Va.) .) In that case, which involved substantially similar allegations, Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a 115-page opinion after a three-week bench trial finding that Google had wilfully acquired and maintained monopoly power in both the publisher ad server and ad exchange mar - kets and had illegally tied its publisher ad server to its ad exchange. (See USA v Google, LLC, No. 1:23-CV- 00108-LMB-JFA, 2025 WL 1132012 (E.D. Va. 17 April 2025) .) The court found that Google’s actions resulted in it acquiring a 91% market share of the worldwide publisher ad server market for open-web display advertising, as well as a share of the worldwide ad exchange market that was roughly nine times larger than the share held by its next-largest competitor. (Id. at *30–31.) If the Southern District of New York agrees that the issues of tying and monopolisation are now
precluded from being re-litigated, the only issues left for Inform to prove would be causation and damages. Haynes v Realpage, Inc. Another case filed in Georgia federal court before being consolidated into an MDL proceeding else - where is Haynes v RealPage, Inc. , filed in the North - ern District of Georgia. (See No. 1:23-cv-03813-VMC (N.D. Ga.).) The plaintiff in Haynes filed a 214-page complaint alleging that RealPage orchestrated a nationwide price-fixing conspiracy in the multi-family rental housing market. (See generally Class Action Complaint, Haynes v RealPage, Inc., No. 1:23-cv- 03813-VMC (N.D. Ga. 25 August 2023) .) The plaintiff alleged that RealPage used its revenue management software to collect its users’ non-public occupancy and pricing data, leveraged that data to generate daily rental pricing recommendations, and then assigned “Pricing Advisors” to users to encourage them to adopt those pricing recommendations. (Id. at 3–13.) According to the plaintiff, this resulted in artificially inflated rent prices, increased vacancy rates, and restrained competition. (Id. at 6–17.) Before responsive pleadings were filed, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued a conditional transfer order, transferring the Haynes case to the Middle District of Tennessee for con - solidated pretrial proceedings with dozens of related actions. (See Conditional Transfer Order, Haynes , No. 1:23-cv-03813-VMC (N.D. Ga. 12 September 2023).) The MDL, which is captioned In re RealPage, Inc., Rental Software Antitrust Litigation (No. II) , remains pending in the Middle District of Tennessee with dis - covery currently underway. (No. 3:23-md-03071.) Shewmaker et al. v Yardi Systems Inc. et al. While not consolidated into an MDL proceeding like the cases above, another unresolved antitrust class action originally filed in the Middle District of Georgia is Shewmaker et al. v Yardi Systems Inc. et al., No. 4:24-cv-00085-CDL (M.D. Ga.) . The plaintiffs, renters of multi-family apartment units in Georgia and Colo - rado, sued 44 landlords and property management companies, as well as Yardi, a real estate technology company providing revenue management software to landlords and management companies. Similar to the RealPage matter, the plaintiffs alleged the existence of
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