US: Xceligent hits back at rival with antitrust lawsuit

An ongoing legal battle between a pair of competing real estate listing firms has heated up with Blue Springs company Xceligent accusing rival CoStar of anti-competitive business practices.

CoStar and Xceligent are multisided platforms that serve the commercial real estate industry similarly to how Zillow and Trulia do for home buyers and sellers: Both research and publish online databases of commercial, retail and industrial buildings. The listings include information such as overall building square footage, market value and occupancy rates. The databases are relied upon by real estate brokers, appraisers and others in the commercial real estate business.

Both companies populate their databases by calling building owners, real estate brokers and tenants to obtain information about the listings.

CoStar, a publicly traded company based in Washington, is by far the leader in the commercial real estate listings business. Xceligent claims CoStar tried to keep its distance ahead of competitors by insisting to its broker and property owner contacts that they could not share their information with other listing firms.

Xceligent also accused CoStar of falsifying information in its own databases without notifying brokers and property owners who provided the data.

Full Content: BISNOW

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