According to the New York Post, City officials allege that “
The Post article continues:
Genesis Computer Consultants may have violated antitrust laws when it pulled out of talks with the city following threats by property, or certiorari, lawyers to boycott its products, city Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said in a June 24 letter to the company.
Apparently,
the software is used by so-called “cert” or “certiorari” lawyers to challenge property tax bills. If the City acquires the software, its assessors would have the same easy-to-access data on incomes and expenses of individual properties over the last 10 years . City Finance Commissioner told the Post that the software “would also allow Finance to perform quick audits of how we calculate property values, making it easier to catch errors and detect any hint of corruption.” Genesis denies the allegations and disputes the City’s legal analysis.I would have never predicted that this weblog would be drawing so often on my antitrust experience. (See yesterday’s postings, July 27th, on the refusal of Bar Advocates in Massachusetts to take cases). If the City is correct, it’s the “cert” lawyers who deserve the most scrutiny by antitrust enforcers. It gets my blood boiling, to think that lawyers might be pressuring a software firm to deprive other users of a valuable tool — an amazingly modern approach to protecting a guild’s source of income. Another blackeye for the profession, or another unjustified slur? We shall see.