Georgia Statutory Law Update: Proposed Legislation Targeting Algorithmic Pricing Tools in Rental Real Estate

As noted in the Georgia Trends & Developments article for the Antitrust Litigation 2025 Practice Guide, Georgia lacks a comprehensive antitrust enforcement framework modelled after the Sherman or Clayton Acts, and most antitrust disputes with a Georgia connection are litigated in the state’s federal courts under federal statutes. In the past year, there have been no changes to Georgia’s antitrust statutory framework, which continues to rest on three sources of substantive law:

• the state constitution’s prohibition on agreements that have the effect of “lessening competition” or “encouraging a monopoly” Ga. Const. art. III, § VI, para. V(c);
• O.C.G.A. Section 13-8-2’s declaration that contracts in general restraint of trade are unenforceable as contrary to public policy; and
• common law, which supplies a tort cause of action to parties injured by conspiracies in restraint of trade.

Targeted statutory intervention may be on the horizon, however. In each of the last two legislative sessions, a bill has been introduced in the Georgia General Assembly targeting the use of algorithmic pricing tools in connection with residential housing – legislation which is plainly responsive to the ongoing RealPage and Yardi litigation and related government actions described in our 2025 update. Although neither bill was ultimately enacted because neither received a floor vote, the bills could foreshadow future additions to Georgia’s statutory framework.

HB 679 (2025 session)

House Bill 679, the “End Rental Price-Fixing Act,” would have amended Chapter 8 of Title 13 of the O.C.G.A. – the chapter governing illegal and void contracts – by adding a new Section 13-8-5 prohibiting agreements involving rental price-fixing with respect to residential rental properties. The bill’s findings identified, among other things, a “recent increase i[n] coordination among landlords to fix rental prices” and noted that the Department of Justice (DOJ) had recently sued a Georgia landlord for price-fixing, likely referring to the action that the DOJ and ten state attorneys general brought against Atlanta-based property manager Cortland Management, LLC and seven other property managers or landlords in United States v RealPage, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-00710-LCB-JLW (M.D.N.C. filed Aug. 23, 2024). The bill targeted the use of a “price-fixing function,” defined as including all three of the following:

• collecting historical or contemporaneous rental prices, supply levels, or lease termination and renewal dates from two or more competing landlords;
• analysing that information through a computational system, including one using machine learning or other artificial intelligence techniques; and
• recommending rental prices, renewal terms, or ideal occupancy levels to a landlord.

The bill would have barred any person from entering into an agreement involving price-fixing, deemed such an agreement an unenforceable contract in general restraint of trade under Section 13-8-2, and made entry into such an agreement a felony punishable by one to five years’ imprisonment, a fine of USD1,000 to USD5,000, or both. A separate provision would have barred landlords from setting rental prices based on a price-fixing function, subject to a carve-out for conduct undertaken pursuant to federal or state affordable or low-income housing programmes.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Gabriel Sanchez, testified in a committee hearing that the legislation was drafted in response to RealPage. Sanchez described the company’s algorithmic software as being sold to landlords competing in the same market and used to calculate rents from non-public market information – a process that Sanchez characterised as “essentially... price collusion.” Ga. House Judiciary Comm., Judiciary 04.01.25, YouTube (Apr. 1, 2025), at 00:07:50. He explained that the bill would codify that the practice “cannot be used to set rental prices,” would render such existing contracts unenforceable, and would “effectively ban[] this kind of AI algorithmic software for fixing rental prices in the housing market.” Id. at 00:08:20–00:09:16.

The hearing also surfaced objections. A representative of the Georgia Association of REALTORS testified that his concern was “not so much in attacking the problem of price fixing,” but rather “how we’re defining it here,” warning that a market participant analysing publicly available rent and supply data, or advising a prospective 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 function” 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 Section 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 managers 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 recommendations 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 carried no criminal penalty and instead borrowed the FBPA’s framework, which would have rendered violators 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 concrete 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 representatives – including David Melton, general manager 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 conduct 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 antitrust laws”, and that in the absence of an agreement to fix prices, there is nothing unlawful about competitors exchanging price information or discussing common industry problems. Id. However, the court confirmed that a jury may nonetheless infer price fixing from evidence of such an exchange – and in David Melton’s case, testimony established that the pre-distribution exchange of price-increase letters was part of an agreement with the express purpose of raising prices. As a result of the court’s ruling, David Melton’s 26-month prison sentence was upheld.

A New “Right to Repair” Class Action in the Northern District of Georgia

The “right to repair” debate has sparked litigation in Georgia, with a class action complaint recently filed against Atlanta-based Porsche Cars North America, Inc. in the Northern District of Georgia. The case, Fleet Salvage Systems, Inc. v Porsche Cars North America, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-02553-ELR (N.D. Ga. filed May 6, 2026), is likely to test novel applications of both federal antitrust law and Georgia consumer protection law.

The plaintiff, a Florida corporation that purchased a 2024 model year Porsche in December 2024, has sued on behalf of a proposed nationwide class and a Florida subclass consisting of all persons “who paid a Porsche-authorized dealer to perform repairs or maintenance services on Affected Vehicles.” Am. Class Action Compl. ¶¶ 17–18, 42–43, Fleet Salvage Sys., Inc. v Porsche Cars N. Am., Inc., No. 1:26-cv-02553-ELR, ECF No. 17 (N.D. Ga. July 20, 2026). Plaintiff’s theory is single-brand aftermarket monopolisation: Porsche is alleged to have designed the electronic architecture of its 2024 model year and later vehicles so that only authorised dealers can access the diagnostic, calibration, coding, and software tools required to complete any servicing or repair. Id. ¶¶ 3–9. Independent repair providers (IRPs), the complaint alleges, can perform such work only if they purchase the Porsche Integrated Workshop Information System IV (PIWIS) diagnostic software, as well as the attendant Porsche Tester hardware and authenticated server access, which are sold at what the plaintiff characterises as a “prohibitive cost.” Id. ¶ 4.

The plaintiff alleges that Porsche and its dealers hold a 100% share of the market for fully functional repair and maintenance of the affected vehicles, that owners are “locked in” by high switching costs after purchase, and that putative class members have paid supracompetitive prices for repairs, maintenance, and parts. Id. ¶¶ 27–30, 37, 74. The amended complaint asserts four counts:

• monopolisation and attempted monopolisation of the repair and servicing market under Section 2 of the Sherman Act;
• conspiracy to monopolise under Section 2, premised on an alleged agreement with independently owned Porsche dealerships;
• violation of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act on behalf of the Florida subclass; and
• violation of the Georgia Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act (UDTPA), O.C.G.A. Sections 10-1-370 et seq., on behalf of the nationwide class. Id. ¶¶ 70–109.

Because the UDTPA affords injunctive relief to persons likely to be damaged by a deceptive trade practice without proof of competition between the parties or actual confusion, the count is framed around ongoing and future harm and seeks an injunction requiring Porsche to make fully functional service capability available to IRPs on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. Id. ¶¶ 106–108.

Porsche filed a motion to dismiss on August 17, 2026, raising two key issues. See Mem. of Law in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss, Fleet Salvage Sys., Inc. v Porsche Cars N. Am., Inc., No. 1:26-cv-02553-ELR, ECF No. 20-1 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 17, 2026). The first is whether the plaintiff can plead a single-brand aftermarket which, Porsche argues, under Eastman Kodak Co. v Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U.S. 451 (1992), requires consumers to demonstrate that they were “locked in” to the product they purchased (eg, through high switching costs) before the manufacturer subsequently changed its repair or replacement parts policy to make it more difficult to receive repair or maintenance services from an independent provider. Porsche argues that, in its case, the requirement for independent providers to purchase subscriptions to perform repairs was in effect before the plaintiff purchased its 2024 model year vehicle. Id. at 11–14. The second issue is whether charging independent shops a high price for proprietary diagnostic tools can be exclusionary conduct at all, given the general rule that firms are free to choose their counterparties and the terms of their contracts. Id. at 17–19 (citing Pac. Bell Tel. Co. v linkLine Commc’ns, Inc., 555 U.S. 438, 448 (2009)). Briefing is ongoing.

A Fowl Case: Summary Judgment for Tyson Against a Poultry-Renderer Plaintiff

The Northern District of Georgia recently granted summary judgment to Tyson, one of the largest poultry processors in the United States, in a Sherman Act suit brought against it by American Proteins, Inc. (API), formerly the largest independent poultry renderer in the Southeast, which alleged that Tyson colluded with two rival poultry processors to cut off its raw material supply and force a below-value sale of its rendering plants. See Am. Proteins, Inc. v River Valley Ingredients, Inc., No. 2:22-cv-00091-RWS, 2026 WL 1003330 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 3, 2026). The court granted Tyson’s motion in its entirety and denied API’s cross-motion for partial summary judgment. Id. at *34.

The relationships among the parties are best understood through the economics of the broiler chicken industry, in which, by number of chickens produced, Georgia leads all other states. A poultry “producer” raises and supplies the birds, while a “processor” operates the plants that convert the birds into chicken products for sale. “Rendering” is the process by which the parts of a chicken not used for human consumption – “raw materials” or “offal” – are collected from poultry processors and converted into products sold for use in pet food and animal feed. While some vertically integrated companies like Tyson perform both processing and rendering functions themselves, other poultry processors require a renderer to take their offal away each operating day, and they then buy the finished meal products back, making those processors simultaneously a renderer’s suppliers and its customers. Because offal may spoil during extended transit, rendering plants must sit within roughly a 150-mile radius of the processors they serve.

There were four relevant players in the Georgia litigation. API was a family-owned renderer with four plants in Georgia and Alabama, and in 2018 it held over 90% of the Southeast rendering market. Tyson was the largest poultry producer in the country and had both processing plants and nine rendering plants – but none in Georgia or Alabama, which is the market it wanted to enter either by building plants or by buying API’s plants. Koch Foods and Wayne Farms were poultry processors that competed with Tyson in processing and were two of API’s largest offal suppliers under contracts expiring in 2019. Tyson thus stood in two positions at once relative to Koch and Wayne: a horizontal competitor in poultry processing, and a prospective downstream purchaser of their offal as a renderer. Together, Tyson’s own processing plants plus Koch’s and Wayne’s accounted for roughly 40% of API’s raw material supply.

API alleged that Tyson orchestrated a horizontal group boycott and hub-and-spoke conspiracy with processors Koch and Wayne by entering ten-year exclusive raw material supply agreements with them in 2017 – severing roughly 40% of API’s offal supply – which API alleged was “the death knell” to its business and left it with no option but to sell its rendering assets to Tyson. Id. at *5. The asset purchase closed in August 2018 for USD865.8 million after DOJ Antitrust Division review concluded the transaction would not adversely affect competition in any relevant market. Id.

In May 2022, API filed a complaint asserting a Section 1 claim for an illegal horizontal group boycott, a Section 2 monopolisation claim, and a Section 2 conspiracy-to-monopolise claim. Am. Proteins, No. 2:22-cv-00091-RWS, ECF No. 1 (N.D. Ga. May 11, 2022). After the court denied Tyson’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion and the parties completed discovery, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment in 2025. See ECF Nos. 232, 237. The court granted Tyson’s motion in full and denied API’s motion. See Am. Proteins, No. 2:22-cv-00091-RWS, 2026 WL 1003330 (N.D. Ga. Mar. 3, 2026).

With respect to the horizontal group boycott claim, the court first found that the conspiracy evidence was ambiguous, or “in equipoise.” According to the court, API’s “plus factor” evidence – Tyson’s internal “Southeast Strategy Memorandum” and the inter-firm communications – did not tend to exclude independent action, and there was no evidence of communication between Koch and Wayne. Id. at *12–17. Each processor also had independent economic reasons to switch, as both Koch and Wayne would generate higher profits by contracting with Tyson than with API. The court remarked that moving one’s business away from a higher-cost provider was “the very essence of competition.” Id. at *16.

Second, the court found that the agreements between Tyson on the one hand and Koch and Wayne on the other were vertical, not horizontal. Id. at *17–18. The court reasoned that Tyson negotiated the 2017 offal purchase agreements as a prospective renderer, placing it at a different level of the supply chain than Koch and Wayne. Id. at *17. According to the court, simply because Tyson dealt with Koch and Wayne horizontally in some contexts did not mean that their separate vertical dealings would be subject to a per se analysis. Id. at *18.

With respect to the hub-and-spoke conspiracy claim, the court found that the claim failed for lack of a horizontal “rim” between Koch and Wayne. Id. at *18–21. Tyson was prepared to proceed with either supplier alone, and the court found there was no evidence of an implicit or explicit agreement between Koch and Wayne to join Tyson. Id.

Finally, the court held that, because API could not establish a horizontal group boycott or a hub-and-spoke conspiracy, it likewise could not establish that it had suffered an injury sufficient to establish antitrust standing. Id. at *23. Had API proven a per se horizontal restraint, antitrust injury would have been presumed, but without one, the court explained that API was required to show affirmatively that it suffered “injury of the type that the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes the defendants’ acts unlawful.” Id. at *24–25.

Of the three injuries API alleged – a devalued sale price for its assets, lost profits, and the harm from Tyson’s “bulldozing” its way into the market – the court found that the first two did not flow from conduct the antitrust laws forbid. Id. at *24. With respect to API’s “bulldozer” theory – drawn from Hanover 3201 Realty, LLC v Village Supermarkets, Inc., 806 F.3d 162 (3d Cir. 2015) and Blue Shield v McCready, 457 U.S. 465 (1982) – API was required to show that its harm was “a necessary step in effecting the ends of the alleged illegal conspiracy”, but the court found that it could not do so because Tyson could have feasibly built its own plants instead of buying API’s plants, such that buying API’s plants was not Tyson’s only (or a “necessary”) route into the market. Id. at *24–25.

API appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, where the appeal is currently pending as Am. Proteins, Inc. v River Valley Ingredients, LLC, No. 26-11066 (11th Cir.). In its opening brief on appeal, API contends that the district court erred in several respects. For the Section 2 claims, API argues that the court used the wrong cost measure – incorrectly crediting Tyson’s positive gross margins as proof of profitability when API’s expert found Tyson never earned a positive net margin, which, under McGahee v N. Propane Gas Co., 858 F.2d 1487 (11th Cir. 1988), is circumstantial evidence of predatory intent. Br. of Appellant, Am. Proteins, Inc. v River Valley Ingredients, LLC, No. 26-11066, ECF No. 20 at 26–39 (11th Cir. July 8, 2026). On the Section 1 claim, API argues the district court improperly

• “dismembered” the alleged conspiracy by parsing each offal purchase agreement as an isolated vertical deal rather than assessing the broader horizontal boycott;
• required API to disprove innocent explanations rather than merely raise a genuine dispute; and
• weighed credibility – thereby discounting Tyson’s memo describing the agreements’ “intent” as pressuring a sale and Koch’s characterisation of its agreement as “a ploy to get API to sell to Tyson.” Id. at 39–55.

Finally, API argues the court disposed of the rule-of-reason claims without substantive analysis and on a circular standing rationale, using its rejection of the horizontal conspiracy theory to deny standing on theories that do not depend on proving a horizontal conspiracy. Id. at 55–63. Briefing is scheduled to be completed in the autumn of 2026.

Conclusion

The past two legislative sessions of the Georgia General Assembly suggest that Georgia may eventually enact targeted antitrust legislation. For now, antitrust litigation in the state remains focused on federal antitrust statutes, with companion claims sometimes brought under Georgia state law. Recent cases such as Fleet Salvage and pending appeals such as American Proteins are positioned to shape the standards that will govern aftermarket protections, exclusive supply arrangements, and antitrust standing in the Eleventh Circuit.