Tag: Real Estate and Mortgages

The FTC issued an administrative complaint charging that Fidelity National Financial’s proposed $1.2 billion acquisition of Stewart Information Services would violate the antitrust laws by significantly reducing competition for title insurance underwriting for large commercial transactions in 45 states and the District of Columbia, and for title information services in 14 local markets. The FTC alleges that if consummated, the merger would reduce an industry dominated by “the Big 4” players to the Big 3. Post-merger, Fidelity would control more than 43 percent of all title insurance sales nationwide, and over 40 percent of sales for large commercial transactions in most state-level markets. The FTC also authorized staff to seek in federal court a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent the parties from consummating the merger, and to maintain the status quo pending the administrative proceeding. On Sept. 10, 2019, the parties abandoned the transaction.

CoreLogic, Inc. agreed to settle FTC charges that its proposed $661 million acquisition of DataQuick Information Systems, Inc. from TPG VI Ontario 1 AIV L.P. would likely substantially lessen competition in the market for national assessor and recorder bulk data. The FTC’s proposed settlement order requires CoreLogic to license to Renwood RealtyTrac national assessor and recorder bulk data as well as several ancillary data sets that DataQuick provides to its customers. The order allows RealtyTrac to offer customers the data and services that DataQuick now offers and to become an effective competitor in the market.