The battle between Applied Systems and Comulate has taken a new turn with a new federal antitrust lawsuit from Comulate.

Late last year the competitors in the insurance technology market traded litigation. Applied Systems sued Comulate on allegations that Comulate tried to take trade secrets. Comulate followed with a court filing accusing Applied Systems of “frivolous litigation” and a scheme to eliminate competition.

Related: Applied Systems, Comulate Spar Over Trade Secret Theft Allegations

To start 2026, Ardent Labs, doing business as Comulate, has filed a new lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District Of Illinois, alleging violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and seeking to “halt an entrenched monopolist’s unlawful campaign to destroy a competitor it could not acquire or outcompete.” The 135-year-old federal law prohibits activities that restrict competition in the marketplace.

Comulate in the lawsuit said Applied’s alleged scheme “includes weaponizing sham litigation, disseminating false and defamatory accusations of [intellectual property] ‘theft’ to Comulate’s customers, threatening to cut off all customers that refuse to abandon Comulate, and…conspiring with a third party to monopolize the downstream market for automated insurance accounting software.”

Comulate, founded in 2022, said its artificial intelligence-powered platform quickly became trusted by insurance agencies and brokerages for its results in increasing efficiencies and cost reductions. In 2023, Applied tried to acquire Comulate but its founders refused, Comulate said.

“Unable to acquire Comulate, Applied set out to destroy it through coordinated interference,” Comulate alleges, by trying to sabotage its customer relationships and kicking Comulate off of Applied’s insurance agency management system, called Epic—a particularly important development since Applied has ownership of Ivans, an essential data infrastructure every competitor to Epic, insurance agency, brokerage customer needs to operate, Comulate said.

Of Comulate’s latest lawsuit, a spokesperson for Applied Systems said, “Comulate’s recycled claims are designed to distract from its own fraud and corporate theft, as detailed in our recent lawsuit.”

“Comulate failed to get its desired outcome in Delaware chancery court and now runs to Illinois federal court with the same baseless claims,” added the spokesperson. “Its latest litigation tactic changes nothing except to underscore the weakness of its case—Comulate knows its allegations cannot withstand scrutiny. Applied welcomes fair competition but will not tolerate outright theft. Comulate lied, cheated, and stole from us, and we look forward to holding them accountable in court.”

Comulate filed its first action in the Delaware Court of Chancery on Dec. 3. Last November, Applied filed its lawsuit in November in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and said Comulate tried to “cheat its way to competitiveness” by making a fake insurance agency to access Applied’s software platform to steal trade secrets.

In its latest 120-page lawsuit, Comulate called Applied is “using sham litigation as a weapon.”