REAL ESTATE DATA FIRM LOBBIES UP: Real estate data company CoStar Group brought on Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and Polaris Government Relations earlier this year, according to disclosures filed over the weekend, following accusations from lawmakers the the company might be engaging in anti-competitive practices in the commercial real estate market. — The company, which operates Apartments.com, ApartmentFinder.com and ForRent.com, also provides data on millions of property listings for brokers across the country as the largest provider of such commercial real estate data and analytics in the country. CoStar hasn’t lobbied in Washington since the beginning of 2018, disclosures show. — But my colleague Josh Cisco revealed earlier this year that the top lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel recently called for FTC Chair Lina Khan to launch an antitrust investigation into the firm. — “[W]e are concerned that Costar may be employing practices that effectively lock in commercial real estate brokers to use CoStar’s platform to the exclusion of rivals,” Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote in a letter to Khan in December. They accused CoStar of “erecting artificial barriers to prevent brokers from taking their own data to competing platforms,” a charge the company denied. — CoStar has previously run up against antitrust concerns — the FTC in 2020 sued to block a proposed deal between CoStar and RentPath, the owner of Rent.com and ApartmentGuide.com. Last month, a federal judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit filed by rival platform Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc. BANK FAILURES RIPPLE ACROSS K STREET: Friday’s collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and Sunday’s closure of Signature Bank, couldn’t have come at a worse time for bank lobbyists, our Zach Warmbrodt reports. Just days earlier, “big bank lobbyists and executives were triumphant. They had convinced key GOP lawmakers to publicly warn Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell against tightening regulations on the industry. Now, the months-long campaign is in jeopardy.” — “The world’s attention is focused on whether the U.S. banking system is safe. And bank lobbyists believe the Fed may now be encouraged to press ahead with tougher rules that it was just beginning to discuss before the meltdown. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) warned mere hours after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse that ‘regulators must not buckle to pressure’ in response to the bank lobbying barrage that had been underway.” — “The rules that the big bank lobby was focused on before SVB’s failure dealt with the capital funding buffers that lenders are required to maintain so they can absorb losses during downturns and spare taxpayers from having to bail them out.” — The effort “bore fruit last week when Powell testified before the House and Senate” and was prodded by mainly GOP lawmakers who “warned him about raising capital requirements … Then on Friday, regulators rushed to rescue SVB, and lobbyists began panicking that their push on capital might be in trouble. Critics immediately connected the dots.” SVB CHIEF LOBBIED FOR WEAKER RISK REGULATIONS: “Eight years before the second-largest bank failure in American history occurred this week, the bank’s president personally pressed Congress to reduce scrutiny of his financial institution, citing the ‘low risk profile of our activities and business model,’” The Lever’s Rebecca Burns, David Sirota, Julia Rock and Andrew Perez report. — Three years and half a million dollars in lobbying later, lawmakers obliged by passing a bipartisan rollback of more stringent risk protections that were put in place following the 2008 financial crisis. — In testimony submitted to the Senate in 2015, SVB’s president, Greg Becker, pushed to raise the threshold for subjecting banks like his to increased oversight known as “enhanced prudential standards.” Becker complained that leaving the threshold as is would cause the bank “to divert significant resources from providing financing to job-creating companies in the innovation economy to complying” with the requirements. — Former President Donald Trump signed the bill containing the higher threshold Becker proposed “despite a report from Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee warning that under the new law, SVB and other banks of its size ‘would no longer be subject to nearly any enhanced regulations.’” CLYDE GROUP ADDS 10: Clyde Group has added Tamara Shaw and Jeanine Kober as health care vice presidents, Annick Bickson as health care account director, Talia Scharf as assistant account executive for health care, Caitlin Harder as account director, Keila Lawrence as assistant account executive, Caleb Klemick and Ashley Sammann as account coordinators, Connor Penegar as media relations specialist and Khanh Dang as creative coordinator. HOW PRAS MICHEL GOT HERE: Rolling Stone’s Michael Ames profiles the Fugees rapper ahead of his trial this month on a slew of charges, including failure to register as a foreign agent — allegedly as part of a scheme that also involved the GOP financiers Steve Wynn and Elliott Broidy — and illegal contributions to former President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. — “When Pras’ trial begins March 27 in the U.S. Federal Court for the District of Columbia, the jury will hear conflicting versions of an inherently confusing story. They will adjourn to their jury room to debate the finer points of federal election law, ponder the legislative spirit of FARA, and do their best to determine what Pras did differently than many others involved who got off easier.” — “To this, the defense will counter, with the aid of 2.7 million pages of discovery documents, that Pras has only ended up here — as the single, suitable fall guy for the crimes of many — because he refused to play ball and take” a plea deal, while others involved in the case faced no charges, pleaded guilty for more lenient sentences, were pardoned, or received immunity.
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