CDK’s $100 million settlement in antitrust suit gets judge’s preliminary approval
A federal judge in Illinois has granted preliminary approval to a settlement in which CDK Global agrees to pay $100 million to resolve claims in an antitrust lawsuit.
The class-action suit was filed in 2017 by dealerships accusing CDK and rival dealership management software provider Reynolds and Reynolds of colluding and conspiring to “restrain and/or eliminate competition” by “fixing, raising and maintaining and/or stabilizing prices” of DMS systems and data integrations.
Between them, the “duopoly,” as the two companies were called in the complaint, dominate the U.S. DMS market. According to DealerTech Nerd, CDK, Reynolds and Cox Automotive’s Dealertrack accounted for approximately 80% of the market share in 2023.
U.S. District Court judge Rebecca Pallmeyer of the federal court in the Northern District of Illinois granted preliminary approval on Aug. 23 for the settlement.
In a news release, plaintiffs’ attorneys Peggy Wedgworth of Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman and Leonard Bellavia of Bellavia Blatt said CDK agrees to pay $100 million for U.S. retail dealerships that bought a CDK and/or DMS between Sept. 1, 2013 and Aug. 15, 2024. CDK will also pay up to $250,000 for notice and claims administration costs.
CDK did not admit any wrongdoing or liability, saying in the settlement agreement it “was entered solely to avoid the further inconvenience, distraction and disruption of burdensome litigation” and to “reach certain and final resolution” in the matter.
“We are pleased to bring the longstanding DMS antitrust dispute filed by dealers in 2017 to a conclusion and move forward,” CDK said in a statement. “As we’ve always done, we will continue to empower dealers with tools and capabilities that allow them to control their data access and the choice of which vendors to share data with.”
Reynolds and Reynolds resolved its part of the lawsuit with a $29.5 million settlement in 2019.
The settlement does not affect other litigation currently involving CDK, including lawsuits associated with the cyberattacks that shut down the company’s systems in June and a pending lawsuit in Georgia filed this summer by Asbury Automotive Group over control of its DMS data as the dealer group transitions to Tekion’s DMS.
The attorneys said dealerships will receive notice of the CDK settlement and can file claims at dealershipclassDMSsettlement.com to file a claim. The website also includes links to the settlement agreement and other case documents.