(Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is expected to challenge Intercontinental Exchange Inc’s $13 billion deal for mortgage software company Black Knight, Politico reported on Monday citing three people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The FTC has been scrutinizing the Black Knight deal for months amid concerns from some U.S. lawmakers the pricing power ICE would gain in the mortgage data market that lenders rely on could lead to higher costs for consumers.
A case is expected to be filed in March, the report added, and no decision would be final until then.
Reuters reported earlier this month Black Knight had decided to put its Empower loan origination software business up for sale in an effort to overcome U.S. antitrust concerns.
ICE, the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, has been pushing into the mortgage market in recent years as a way to diversify its business away from share trading.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
