Washington, D.C. — Following news last Friday that Trump administration Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division officials were overruled by senior DOJ officials to approve a merger between the two largest real estate brokerages, Compass and Anywhere Real Estate, the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“Trust in the Trump administration’s ability to enforce the rule of law against anticompetitive mergers, much less scrutinize them, has completely evaporated,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Meanwhile, the dream of buying a home is being put increasingly out of reach by a needless merger of the two largest real estate brokerages in the country. With Compass, Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker, Better Homes, and Corcoran all under the same roof, local and regional housing markets across the country will see more than 60% of all home sales controlled by a single brokerage. The last thing Americans need is another behemoth middleman to extract monopoly rents from vulnerable first time home-buyers, steer buyers toward costly and predatory mortgage providers, and flatten the complex and vulnerable experience of buying a home.”

“It’s HPE-Juniper all over again. It’s bandit antitrust. Never mind the details, just hire Mike Davis or some other Trump-aligned lobbyist to go over the heads of dedicated career antitrust enforcers and sink valid competition and affordability concerns,” added Hepner. “Business is booming for lobbyists, executives, and financial speculators, while the American dream withers on the vine.”

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; international trade arrangements that promote balanced trade and benefit workers, farmers and small businesses; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.