Northern District of Illinois | No. 25 C 3487, MDL No. 3152 | September 28, 2026

J.R. Howell  |  The American Counsel  

On September 28, 2026, Judge Sara L. Ellis of the Northern District of Illinois allowed contractors to pursue allegations that major construction equipment rental companies used a shared benchmarking service to coordinate prices. Her opinion in In re Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Litigation permits both a price-fixing claim and an information-exchange claim to proceed against the platform operator and rental companies. The decision matters because it examines how a common source of pricing advice allegedly became a practical constraint on independent competition. The contractors have established the plausibility of their claims. They have yet to prove them.[1]

A supplier can use better information to compete more effectively. However, when competitors contribute confidential records to the same service and allegedly organize their pricing around its output, the resulting arrangement demands a closer explanation. In this case, the complaint describes the information entering the platform, the recommendations coming out, and the practices that allegedly discouraged departures. Those connections gave the court a basis to permit discovery. They also identify the questions that should govern scrutiny of shared pricing systems across other industries.

The complaint describes a system for maintaining prices

The plaintiffs are six contracting and construction-related businesses that rent equipment directly from the defendants. Their claims concern Rouse Rental Insights, a service operated by Rouse Analytics and Rouse Services. The rental defendants include United Rentals, Sunbelt, HERC, H&E, Sunstate, Home Depot, and EquipmentShare.com. According to the complaint as summarized by the court, major rental companies approached Rouse after industry executives expressed concern about discounting and inconsistent rate management. The resulting service began in 2011 with support from the American Rental Association.[2]

The alleged information flow was unusually detailed. Participating companies permitted Rouse to extract invoice-level pricing information and operational data through connections to their business systems. Rouse used the pooled information to produce high, medium, and low price ranges for equipment categories in different geographic areas. Those ranges returned to participants through dashboards and integrations with quoting systems. This sequence matters because the plaintiffs allege that competitors supplied the material from which their common pricing reference was constructed.[3]

Rouse maintained that its pricing analytics used information at least ninety days old. The complaint nevertheless alleged that a seasonally adjusted trend line projected current conditions from the older data. It also alleged that the lag did not apply to operational information supplied nightly, including utilization and equipment turnover. Whether those allegations accurately describe the system will matter considerably. A genuinely historical benchmark can present a different competitive question from a service that makes rivals’ current capacity and pricing behavior readily usable.[4]

The complaint then connects the benchmark to the conduct of sales employees. It alleges that software flagged or prevented rates below the prescribed range, that companies required managerial approval for discounts, and that compensation practices rewarded adherence. The defendants allegedly priced within Rouse’s ranges approximately ninety percent of the time. These are allegations accepted for purposes of the dismissal motions. Their significance lies in the practical limits they would place on a salesperson’s ability to win business by offering a lower price.[5]

That distinction helps explain why the label placed on a product cannot resolve its legal consequences. A recommendation may leave the final decision formally with the customer while the surrounding approval rules make deviation difficult. Conversely, a sophisticated pricing tool may preserve meaningful independent judgment if users routinely depart from it for competitive reasons. Evidence about the actual operation of the system will therefore be more useful than either side’s preferred description of the software.

Common software becomes relevant through evidence of common conduct

Section 1 of the Sherman Act requires concerted action. Several firms can choose the same service provider independently without agreeing to coordinate their market behavior. Judge Ellis accordingly examined whether the complaint supplied a plausible basis to infer an agreement among competitors. The plaintiffs advanced several alternatives. The court found their circumstantial theory sufficient and did not need to decide their separate direct-evidence and invitation-and-acceptance theories.[6]

The alleged parallel conduct included continuing rental price increases alongside widespread use of Rouse’s service. According to the complaint, participants submitted sensitive information, incorporated the resulting benchmarks into quoting systems, and enforced adherence even as utilization declined. The court explained that companies need not have signed their Rouse contracts on the same day. Their continuing conduct during the alleged conspiracy could supply the relevant comparison.[7]

Parallel conduct alone was insufficient. The court therefore examined the additional circumstances commonly called plus factors. These included the exchange of sensitive information, conduct allegedly contrary to unilateral economic interests, and a market structure conducive to coordination. The plaintiffs also identified opportunities for interaction through industry events. Rather than treating each allegation as a separate case, the court considered what the allegations suggested together.[8]

The claimed economic mechanism was straightforward. A company ordinarily has reason to protect commercially sensitive information from competitors. Here, the plaintiffs alleged that each contributor expected to receive the benefit of its rivals’ information through the same platform. The complaint further alleged that companies maintained higher prices while equipment sat idle. When combined with the asserted controls on discounting, these allegations supported an inference that participants expected others to maintain the shared approach.[9]

Of course, underused equipment and rising prices can have lawful explanations. A company may face higher costs or determine that a lower price would not generate enough additional business. Those possibilities belong in the analysis. What persuaded the court was the fuller account of reciprocal information sharing and pricing discipline, including an allegation that other participants complained about EquipmentShare.com’s lower prices before its pricing aligned with the group. The court permitted that account to be tested rather than resolving the competing explanations on the pleadings.[10]

The information-exchange claim carries its own requirements

The plaintiffs also alleged an unlawful agreement to exchange information. Judge Ellis assessed that claim under the rule of reason. This required attention to the relevant market and the alleged competitive effects. Under that framework, plaintiffs initially must establish substantial anticompetitive effects. If they do so, defendants may offer a procompetitive rationale. Plaintiffs may then show that the asserted efficiencies could reasonably be obtained through less anticompetitive means. At this stage, the court was deciding whether the complaint adequately pleaded a claim.[11]

The proposed geographic market was nationwide. The defendants argued that equipment rental demand was regional and that national branch networks did not establish a national market from the customer’s perspective. The court nevertheless found the allegations sufficient, pointing to national operations, the ability to redeploy equipment across the country, and the platform’s national, regional, and local benchmarks. The ruling permits development of the evidence needed to test that market definition.[12]

Home Depot separately challenged the product market. The plaintiffs grouped medium-to-large construction machinery while excluding small hand tools and light equipment. A collection of machines is not necessarily a coherent antitrust market simply because one business rents them all. The complaint therefore needed a commercial explanation for the grouping. Judge Ellis found it sufficient that the plaintiffs identified industrial-grade uses and industry recognition of construction and industrial equipment rentals as a distinct sector.[13]

Finally, the complaint connected the exchange to allegedly higher prices through the integration of benchmarks and restrictions on discounting. That causal account supplied more than an assertion that information and price increases happened to coexist. Still, the rule-of-reason claim will require evidence about how the arrangement affected competition. The opinion does not establish that all industry benchmarking is unlawful or that these particular benchmarks actually caused an overcharge.[14]

The comparison with housing litigation turns on how pricing authority is exercised

The closest comparison is Duffy v. Yardi Systems, Inc., a December 2024 decision from the Western District of Washington. There, apartment renters alleged that landlords contributed confidential commercial information to Yardi’s RENTmaximizer service with an understanding that the service would use pooled information to recommend rents. Judge Robert S. Lasnik found adequate allegations of both invitation and acceptance and parallel conduct supported by additional circumstances. The alleged contribution of competitors’ information and adherence to resulting recommendations supplied the connection between individual software contracts and a common arrangement.[15]

The comparison is useful because the economic pressure works through similar decisions. A landlord chooses whether to lower rent to fill an apartment. An equipment company chooses whether to lower a rental price to put a machine to use. If rivals independently make those choices, customers can benefit from the prospect that someone will accept less. If the rivals jointly replace that uncertainty with a shared pricing discipline, the same unused capacity can coexist with prices that competition would otherwise put under pressure. That is the theory these complaints seek to establish.

The legal classifications still require care. In Duffy, Judge Lasnik treated the adequately alleged horizontal price-fixing agreement as subject to the per se rule. He reasoned that using software did not change the character of the alleged agreement. The construction equipment opinion separately analyzes the information-exchange count under the rule of reason. The distinction matters because an agreement to fix prices and an agreement to exchange information can require different proof and different treatment under the antitrust laws.[16]

The strongest defense requires a genuine account of independent choice

The defendants’ position deserves more than a passing reference. Aggregated historical information can help firms understand demand and allocate expensive equipment. Common adoption may reflect product quality. High adherence to useful advice may be rational. If prices rise because each company makes better decisions independently, Section 1 does not supply a general prohibition on those increases. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Gibson v. Cendyn Group, LLC gives this argument substantial force.[17]

In Gibson, hotel guests challenged individual agreements licensing common pricing software. The plaintiffs had abandoned their appeal concerning the separate horizontal, hub-and-spoke theory. The panel held that the remaining allegations did not plausibly establish restraints on competition in the hotel-room market. It emphasized the absence of alleged pooling or sharing of confidential information for competitors’ recommendations and the absence of restrictions on the hotels’ competitive choices. These procedural and factual limits are essential to understanding the result.[18]

The panel also expressly recognized that nonbinding recommendations would not immunize a horizontal agreement among competitors to follow them. That issue was outside the surviving appeal. Accordingly, Gibson should not be read as a general exemption for pricing services whenever a customer retains a contractual right to override an output. Equally, the equipment decision should not be read to make a high acceptance rate sufficient by itself. The inquiry remains whether the alleged arrangement connects competitors’ choices in a way that plausibly restrains competition.[19]

On that issue, the equipment plaintiffs supplied allegations missing from the licensing theory addressed in Gibson. They described the pooled inputs, the resulting ranges, and the practices allegedly supporting adherence. Judge Ellis could accept those well-pleaded allegations at dismissal without deciding that the defendants’ explanation was false. Discovery must now determine whether the described system existed and whether the inference of coordination survives examination of the underlying evidence.

Private enforcement makes the operation of the system examinable

The opinion also contains a meaningful limit on who may be sued. Judge Ellis dismissed the claims against Rouse’s parent, RB Global, without prejudice. Ownership, shared branding, and generalized claims of control did not adequately explain the parent’s participation in the alleged conspiracy. The court required a concrete account of what RB Global had done. By contrast, the allegations against EquipmentShare.com, Home Depot, and Sunstate adequately identified their participation in the challenged service and put them on notice of the claims.[20]

That distinction strengthens the decision’s broader lesson. Antitrust analysis becomes more credible when it follows the alleged conduct through each actor instead of treating corporate size or affiliation as a substitute for responsibility. The same discipline should govern the eventual merits inquiry into Rouse and the rental companies. A finding against them would require proof of the relevant conduct, its unlawful character, and the resulting injury.

I favor private enforcement because firms that pay an alleged overcharge should have a meaningful way to test the arrangement responsible for it. Cases involving shared information services show why that matters. Customers can observe their bills while the relationships among data contributions, internal pricing rules, and deviations remain inside the businesses involved. A sufficiently detailed complaint gives those customers a lawful route to obtain and test evidence that public price observations alone cannot supply.

For that reason, the next stage should concentrate on how the alleged coordination was implemented. The content and timing of the data feeds will bear on what competitors could learn. Records of overrides and discount approvals will bear on whether independent choice remained practical. Communications about participation will bear on whether contributors understood themselves to be part of a common arrangement. Those facts can support liability or defeat it. Either result would be more informative than treating the presence of an algorithm as the answer.

Notes

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[1] In re Construction Equipment Rental Antitrust Litigation, No. 25 C 3487, MDL No. 3152, slip op. at 1–2, 12–13, 37 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 28, 2026), ECF No. 299 (denying the joint dismissal motion and specified rental-company motions while dismissing RB Global without prejudice).

[2] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 1–7 (identifying the parties and describing the complaint’s account of the development of Rouse Rental Insights).

[3] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 7–8 (describing allegations concerning nightly data submissions, generated benchmarks, and the asserted limitations of the ninety-day pricing-data lag).

[4] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 7–8 (describing allegations concerning nightly data submissions, generated benchmarks, and the asserted limitations of the ninety-day pricing-data lag).

[5] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 9–12 (recounting alleged adoption rates and the software, managerial, and compensation practices supporting benchmark adherence).

[6] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 13–15 (addressing the circumstantial agreement theory and the requirement of parallel conduct supported by additional circumstances).

[7] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 15–18 (finding plausible allegations of continuing parallel conduct without requiring simultaneous adoption of the service).

[8] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 18–22, 36 n.12 (evaluating the allegations together and explaining the plausibility standard governing competing explanations).

[9] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 18–22, 36 n.12 (evaluating the allegations together and explaining the plausibility standard governing competing explanations).

[10] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 18–22, 36 n.12 (evaluating the allegations together and explaining the plausibility standard governing competing explanations).

[11] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 22–24 (applying the rule of reason to the information-exchange claim and describing the allocation of burdens).

[12] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 24–28 (finding the alleged nationwide geographic market and construction-equipment product market plausible at the pleading stage).

[13] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 24–28 (finding the alleged nationwide geographic market and construction-equipment product market plausible at the pleading stage).

[14] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 28–29 (finding sufficient allegations connecting the information exchange to higher prices and allowing Count Two to proceed to discovery).

[15] Duffy v. Yardi Systems, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-01391-RSL, slip op. at 5–11 (W.D. Wash. Dec. 4, 2024), ECF No. 187 (finding plausible allegations of agreement through invitation and acceptance and parallel conduct supported by plus factors).

[16] Duffy, slip op. at 11–16 (applying the per se rule to the adequately alleged horizontal price-fixing agreement). Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 22–24 (applying the rule of reason to the separate information-exchange count).

[17] Gibson v. Cendyn Group, LLC, No. 24-3576, slip op. at 4–14, 18–21, 26–30 (9th Cir. Aug. 15, 2025) (affirming dismissal of the surviving software-licensing claim after the plaintiffs abandoned their appeal concerning the separate horizontal claim).

[18] Gibson v. Cendyn Group, LLC, No. 24-3576, slip op. at 4–14, 18–21, 26–30 (9th Cir. Aug. 15, 2025) (affirming dismissal of the surviving software-licensing claim after the plaintiffs abandoned their appeal concerning the separate horizontal claim).

[19] Gibson, slip op. at 19 n.8, 22–24 & n.10, 26 n.11 (distinguishing a horizontal agreement to follow recommendations and reserving the question of an independent binding delegation of pricing). Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 17–22 (evaluating adherence together with pooled confidential data and alleged enforcement mechanisms).

[20] Construction Equipment Rental, slip op. at 29–37 (finding insufficient allegations of RB Global’s direct participation or integrated-enterprise liability while rejecting the specified rental companies’ group-pleading challenges).