The complaint says the industry's biggest players violated antitrust law in sharing sensitive home loan data with competitors and subsequently raising rate spreads. Borrowers specifically scrutinize Optimal Blue's competitive analytics and Competitive Data License tools rolled out in 2019. 

The lawsuit was first reported by Law360. 

In a statement Wednesday, attorneys for the four named plaintiffs said algorithmic pricing and information exchange platforms continue to spread to more industries. 

"Plaintiffs allege that these practices in the mortgage industry are anticompetitive, have placed American borrowers on the receiving end of inflated mortgage rates, and justify class relief," said Robin A. van der Meulen, partner at New York-based Scott + Scott, in an email. 

The prospective class spans likely millions of members, while neither attorneys nor the complaint speculated on the amount of damages plaintiffs could realize. 

The lawsuit focuses on rate spreads, or the difference between a loan's annual percentage rate and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's average prime offer rate. Since 2020, plaintiffs say mortgages issued by Optimal Blue users were around 2.68 basis points higher than non-users. 

"More damning still, Optimal Blue users' rate spreads after 2019 — controlling for pandemic effects and other variables — were 9.6 basis points higher than their pre-2020 baseline, representing a massive windfall extracted from American homebuyers," wrote counsel for plaintiffs. 

In a statement Wednesday, Optimal Blue said it doesn't agree with plaintiffs' assertions, but it could not provide further comment during the legal process. 

"We are confident that we can demonstrate how Optimal Blue's products actually foster competition in the mortgage industry," the statement said. 

Which companies are accused of price-fixing?

The complaint names 29 companies as defendants, claiming the originators on the list used the Optimal Blue tools in question for at least a portion of their originations between 2019 and 2024. Of the 26 lenders, 11 responded to National Mortgage News and declined to comment. 

The independent mortgage banks being sued are: Rocket Mortgage and Mr. Cooper, United Wholesale Mortgage, Loandepot, Fairway Independent Mortgage, Freedom Mortgage, Rate, Newrez, CrossCountry, Pennymac, Guild, New American Funding, CMG Mortgage, Amerisave Mortgage, Better Mortgage, Churchill Mortgage, Movement Mortgage and Beeline Loans. 

The depositories and their home lending arms named as defendants are Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Citibank, Flagstar Bank, Firstbank Mortgage, and First Community Mortgage.

Also being sued are former Optimal Blue provider Black Knight and that company's current owner, Constellation Software. Representatives for those companies didn't return requests for comment. 

Why borrowers are calling the firms a cartel

The homeowners, who obtained loans between 2022 and 2025, point to the data hubs in which originators share their real-time, sensitive loan and profit information to Optimal Blue "as the price of admission to this cartel."

The nonpublic information includes loan originators' margins, loan-level pricing adjustments, concessions, servicing release premiums, loan officer compensation, and borrower credit profiles sortable down to LO, branch and geographic levels. 

"Defendants freely share this intelligence as the price of cartel membership, ensuring uniformly inflated mortgage prices for American families," the suit reads. 

Attorneys wrote that Optimal Blue claims to work with 3,500 lenders, although they did not respond to a question Wednesday why they named the 26 specific lender defendants. 

Plaintiffs say the conspiracy has compounded the current affordability crisis, in which borrowers today are beset by high home prices and mortgage rates sitting over 6%. The complaint states Optimal Blue users' rate spreads averaged around 4.52 basis points lower than other lenders on average, prior to its rollout of business analytics tools. 

Optimal Blue, which also publishes frequent public reports on market dynamics, was acquired by Toronto-based Constellation in 2023. The Canadian company paid $700 million for the platform which Intercontinental Exchange divested during its purchase of Black Knight.