A legal retaliation over MLS rules blocking the upcoming listing has been going on in Washington courts for a year.
The legal retaliation between Compass International Holdings Inc. and Northwest MLS continues this week, with the giant brokerage firm telling a court the “exclusive” multiple listing service limits consumer choice by enforcing rules that block pre-market listings.
Compass and NWMLS are locked in a lawsuit over whether multiple listing services can block future listings. This lawsuit is one of the hottest trends facing the industry and one of the most hotly debated.
Compass sued NWMLS in April of last year in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington after the MLS temporarily stopped feeding listings in its coverage area, citing concerns about how Compass’ listings were being marketed.
NWMLS filed a countersuit earlier this month accusing Compass of using “Orwellian-named” pre-marketing strategies, including Compass Private Exclusive Products and Compass Coming Soon Products.
Now, in an April 23 filing, Compass continued to defend its pre-marketing strategy as pro-consumer and criticized the NWMLS rules as an anti-competitive conspiracy by Seattle-area brokerages to thwart Compass.
“NWMLS, through its counterclaims, seeks to fabricate tort liability from Compass’ efforts to help brokers comply with their fiduciary duties and provide homeowners with a variety of options for selling their homes,” Compass wrote in its filing. “However, NWMLS’s own anticompetitive ‘success’ in blocking these practices prevented any harm to NWMLS.”
“NWMLS’s counterclaim therefore serves only as a clear threat to Compass and other Seattle-area brokers who wish to challenge NWMLS’s orders or dissociate from the broker conspiracy orchestrated by NWMLS,” the filing continued.
NWMLS is one of the few multiple listing services that prohibits all coming soon listings. Utah Real Estate is another example, but the MLS is preparing a rule change to allow such pre-market listings, which are allowed in most other MLSs.
Seattle-based Redfin recently asked NWMLS to change its rules to join other MLSs that serve the majority of agents and allow its upcoming listing.
Last month, Judge Jamal N. Whitehead, who is overseeing the case, denied a request from NWMLS to dismiss Compass’ case.
In response to the complaint, NWMLS criticized Compass’ marketing strategy as a “ruse” and “an exclusionary practice that hides important information and listings from the buyers who need them most.”
“Compass’s recent attempts to frame market transparency as a ‘monopoly’ distract from the real problem: the creation of shadow inventories that benefit a single brokerage firm at the expense of the general public,” the statement said.
“We believe a fair market means an open market. We will continue to uphold pro-competitive rules that benefit all agents and consumers, and we will continue to protect the public’s right to a transparent, competitive, and honest real estate market.”
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