USA – GEORGIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Lohr Beck and Kasey Clark, King & Spalding LLP
warning that a market participant analysing publicly available rent and supply data, or advising a prospec - tive purchaser on competitive rents, could be swept in – and be exposed to prison time for doing so. Id. at 00:36:10–00:39:30. In closing, Sanchez responded that the three components of the “price-fixing func - tion” definition were conjunctive, such that collection of data alone would not be enough: the information must also be analysed using computational software and used to make recommendations to a landlord. Id. at 00:39:30–00:40:45. Because the bill received no committee vote, however, it effectively died with the end of the 2025 legislative session. SB 559 (2026 session) Senate Bill 559 took a different route. Rather than amending Title 13, it would have added a new Sec - tion 10-1-393.22 to the Fair Business Practices Act of 1975 (FBPA). The bill would have made it “an unlawful, unfair, and deceptive trade practice” for any person doing business in Georgia knowingly or with reckless disregard to facilitate an agreement between two or more residential rental property owners or manag - ers not to compete in renting or leasing residential dwelling units, “including by operating or licensing a software, data analytics service, or algorithmic device that performs a coordinating function” on their behalf. It would also have made it unlawful for an owner or manager knowingly or with reckless disregard to set or adjust rental prices, lease renewal terms, occupancy levels, or other lease terms based on recommenda - tions from such a tool. Two features of SB 559 are worth noting. First, its “coordinating function” definition, like HB 679’s “price- fixing function” definition, was conjunctive – requiring collection and analysis of information, followed by a recommendation to a residential rental property owner or manager – and it applied only where at least two of the contributing owners or managers were not wholly owned subsidiaries of the same parent or otherwise commonly owned or managed. Second, the bill car - ried no criminal penalty and instead borrowed the FBPA’s framework, which would have rendered viola - tors subject to civil penalties and private lawsuits for damages. Like HB 679, SB 559 died in committee. It remains to be seen whether a successor bill will be
introduced in the coming session and, if so, whether it will secure a vote in either chamber. Eleventh Circuit Affirms the Ready-Mix Concrete Criminal Conviction In 2025, we reported on the jury convictions of the Melton brothers – participants in the ready-mix con - crete industry – in the Southern District of Georgia for violating Section 1 of the Sherman Act in USA v Evans Concrete , LLC, No. 4:20-cr-00081-RSB-BKE, and noted that David Melton’s appeal was fully briefed and awaiting decision. On June 2, 2026, the Eleventh Circuit issued an eleven-page order affirming Melton’s conviction. See United States v Melton , No. 24-13674, 2026 WL 1552189 (11th Cir. June 2, 2026). The panel described evidence introduced at trial of a conspiracy among concrete companies and their rep - resentatives – including David Melton, general man - ager of Elite Concrete LLC, and Greg Melton, David’s brother and a division manager at Elite Concrete’s competitor, Argos – to co-ordinate price increases, rig bids, and allocate jobs in the ready-mix concrete industry in the Savannah, Georgia area. On appeal, Melton raised three issues: sufficiency of the evidence of an agreement, the denial of his new-trial motion based on witness testimony characterising the con - duct as “illegal,” and the composition of the grand jury during the COVID-19 pandemic. On sufficiency, the court held that a reasonable jury could have found that David Melton participated in an agreement to fix prices, rig bids, or allocate markets based on evidence that he supplied information to competitors for annual price-increase letters for the purpose of raising prices, discussed specific bids with competitors so that they submitted non-competitive bids, and divided market areas and customers. And two points from the opinion regarding information exchange are particularly salient. First, the court reaffirmed that “[t]he exchange of price information among competitors is not a per se violation of the anti - trust laws”, and that in the absence of an agreement to fix prices, there is nothing unlawful about com - petitors exchanging price information or discussing common industry problems. Id. However, the court confirmed that a jury may nonetheless infer price fix - ing from evidence of such an exchange – and in David
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