Roper Subsidiary PowerPlan Pays $24 Million to Settle Antitrust Case Brought by Lucasys Inc.

On January 2, 2025, PowerPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Roper Technologies, agreed to pay $24 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the Robbins Firm on behalf of its client Lucasys Inc.  The complaint alleged that PowerPlan wrongfully attempted to drive Lucasys out of business once it recognized Lucasys as a threat to its monopoly on accounting software for investor-owned utilities.  Lucasys filed suit in 2020, asserting that PowerPlan’s anti-competitive campaign against Lucasys violated the antitrust laws and various state laws.  In an order denying PowerPlan’s motion to dismiss the complaint in the action, a federal judge called the case a “David-and-Goliath” story.

Extensive discovery in this case highlighted that PowerPlan’s executives initiated a communication campaign to warn customers not to work with Lucasys based on the sham assertion that there was a risk Lucasys would misuse or misappropriate PowerPlan’s confidential information.  Discovery in the lawsuit, however, demonstrated that there was no such risk and that Lucasys did not misuse or misappropriate anything.  In addition, PowerPlan already published thousands of pages containing such information on its own website and mobile application as well as public source code repositories.  After this was discovered during the litigation, PowerPlan withdrew its objection to Lucasys providing service to its customers and, since at least October 2022, has not objected to Lucasys’ access to the PowerPlan software and database in order to service Lucasys customers.

Following  a hearing on cross-motions for summary judgment (including a motion filed by Lucasys for partial summary judgment on Lucasys’s affirmative claims), the parties ultimately agreed to a settlement.  In addition to paying Lucasys $24 million, PowerPlan agreed as part of the settlement that it would “not engage in any retaliation, retribution, or discrimination against any PowerPlan customer for doing business with Lucasys or any vendor of such customer.”    The parties also agreed to abide by the law in their dealings with one another’s customers. 

Lucasys CEO, Vadim Lantukh, praised the firm’s handling of the matter, stating, “We want to thank our attorneys at the Robbins firm, who seemed always to be one step ahead of the attorneys representing PowerPlan.  Their efforts in securing this tremendous result for our company will allow Lucasys to continue fulfilling our mission of delivering value to our customers through state-of-the-art software solutions.”

Counsel for Lucasys included Jason Alloy, Joshua Mayes, Richard Robbins, Evan Dunn, and Rachel Gage.

A copy of the settlement agreement is available here:  Link to Settlement Agreement

A press release regarding the settlement is available here: Link to Press Release