FICO Statement Regarding Antitrust Investigation

On Friday, March 13, 2020, FICO was notified that the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, opened a civil investigation into potential exclusionary conduct by FICO.  FICO intends to fully cooperate with the Department of Justice and looks forward to a constructive dialogue about the state of competition in our industry. 

Lenders have multiple choices of analytic models to use in credit decisioning and are free to choose the credit score that works best for them. In a competitive marketplace, the FICO® Score is chosen because it is trusted to be independent, predictive and reliable, and because FICO is constantly innovating to enable lenders to responsibly extend access to credit.  FICO has also earned the trust of consumers through programs like the FICO Score Open Access initiative, which provides customers from more than 200 financial institutions with free access to the FICO Scores used to manage their credit accounts.

FICO is confident the Department will conclude that it has not engaged in any exclusionary conduct.  To the extent the Department’s inquiry was initiated based on TransUnion’s antitrust claims in the parties’ ongoing private litigation—claims TransUnion made only after FICO filed its lawsuit to recover millions in unpaid royalties from TransUnion—we are equally confident the Department will find them to be without merit.