The New York-based MLS is the eighth to ask the court to protect it from the brokerage giant’s litigation threats, which it says date back to March.
After publicly rejecting Compass’ demand to change its listing policies, New York’s largest multiple listing service is the latest to sue the brokerage giant and seek a declaration that its listing rules don’t violate antitrust laws.
In an amended complaint filed Oct. 27, OneKey MLS, which has about 40,200 subscribers, joined the lawsuit California Regional MLS filed against Compass in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York earlier this month. Six other MLSs filed a similar suit against Compass on Oct. 21.
The CRMLS and OneKey suit now asks the court to declare not only that the MLSs’ “substantively similar” cooperation rules are lawful under the federal Sherman Act and the California Cartwright Act, but also under New York’s primary antitrust law, the Donnelly Act.
“Compass is a OneKey participant, and its affiliated agents are OneKey subscribers,” the amended complaint states.
“OneKey therefore faces the same choice that CRMLS faces: continue to enforce rules its participants adopted and abide by, and face the litigation Compass has expressly threatened, or abandon those rules and expose itself to potential claims from buyers, buyer agents, and the many participating brokerages that contribute their listings to the cooperative.”
Amended complaint says CCP was adopted due to agents ‘hiding listings’: Compass objects to both MLSs implementing NAR’s controversial Clear Cooperation Policy, which requires a listing broker to submit a property to the MLS within one business day of any public marketing, if the property is under an exclusive listing agreement. The amended complaint adds that the policy was adopted “[i]n response to, among other things, a significant rise in uncooperative seller agents hiding listings from the MLS cooperative.”
The suit also calls for an injunction permanently barring Compass from suing both MLSs alleging that the rules violate federal or state antitrust laws.
Compass responds: In an emailed statement, a Compass International Holdings spokesperson told Real Estate News, “It’s almost as if CRMLS and OneMLS [sic] are asking people to ignore the evidence that proves their claims aren’t true. For years, seven of the top 25 MLSs, covering 340,000 agents across 12 states, have allowed agents to publicly market ‘office exclusives’ without fines, and none of the problems they warn about have happened. If what we are asking for is so bad, why has it worked for years in nearly 30% of the country?”
When asked whether the addition of New York-based OneKey MLS will hamper the brokerage’s efforts to move the case to the Central District of California, Compass did not respond.
Threats ‘not hollow’: According to the amended complaint, OneKey MLS received a demand letter from Compass on Sept. 8 that was “nearly identical” to
Read More: OneKey joins CRMLS as plaintiff in lawsuit against Compass
