ATLANTA — Channel 2 Action News learned about a federal investigation into price fixing in the apartment rental market.
The investigation led FBI agents to conduct a search at an Atlanta-based apartment management company.
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FBI Atlanta confirmed their agents were there at the address of Cortland Management offices in Atlanta. Cortland is a company that manages apartment complexes all over the country, including dozens in Metro Atlanta.
In a statement to Channel 2 Action News, Cortland said, “We can confirm that the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a limited search warrant at our Atlanta office as part of an ongoing investigation by the US Department of Justice into potential antitrust violations in the multifamily housing industry.”
The search happened last week at their Buckhead office.
Currently, there are no charges, and a complaint hasn’t been filed. Former prosecutor Chris Timmons explained what antitrust violations could mean.
“Usually anti-trust is some sort of anti-competitive behavior meaning there’s an allegation of price fixing in some way,” said Timmons. “Someone that they’ve had contact with is accused of setting prices and driving the prices in the multifamily housing market artificially high.”
Cortland went on to say, “We are cooperating fully with that investigation, and we understand that neither Cortland nor any of our employees are “targets” of that investigation.”
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“Typically a search warrant comes into play when somebody’s not responding to a subpoena of some sort of other informal document request,” said Timmons. “When that happens someone takes out a search warrant and gets it from a judge. A judge finds that there is probable cause that there is evidence at that location of a crime and they go and serve the search warrant.”
Cortland added, “Due to the ongoing litigation, we cannot comment further at this time.”
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