Cox Automotive files antitrust suit against Ill. software firm

Cox Automotive has filed an antitrust suit against CDK Global, an Illinois-based provider of software and digital marketing.

The suit alleges that CDK Global, together with The Reynolds and Reynolds Co., committed “significant antitrust violations,” according to a statement by Cox, which filed the suit in U.S. District Court in Wisconsin.

According to the statement, the conspiracy damaged “automotive dealers, vendors of software products and services, and the automotive industry as a whole.”

Cox charges that CDK and Reynolds tried to eliminate competition for “integration to dealer data,” as well as to seize control of data used by dealers.

Cox charges that the conspirators put restrictions on data that “tilted the table” to give CDK’s products and services an unfair advantage in the market.

As a result, CDK and Reynolds reaped “enormously inflated” fees and other financial windfalls.

Roxanne Pipitone, a spokeswoman for CDK, said late Monday that the company does not comment in detail on matters in litigation.

Cox Automotive is one of three business units owned by Cox Enterprises. The others are Cox Communications, which operates cable and broadband, and Cox Media Group, which operates television, radio and newspapers, including The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.