In pursuit of a separate settlement agreement in a long-running commission lawsuit, homesellers suing Massachusetts-based MLS PIN over commission practices said their discussions with Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers in the wake of the National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) agreement have not been fruitful.
According to a court filing, the MLS PIN plaintiffs reached out to the DOJ in early December following a judge’s final approval of the NAR settlement deal in an attempt to address earlier objections to their own proposed settlement, including offering to have it “mirror” the NAR agreement.
“The (DOJ) advised that it would not propose any specific changes to Plaintiffs,” the filing said.
The filing comes only days after the Supreme Court rejected NAR’s bid to block a long-running DOJ investigation into the association and its policies, allowing that separate inquiry to go forward. While antitrust lawyers with the DOJ have objected to the NAR settlement, lawyers for NAR and other real estate brokerages caught up in the investigations and commission lawsuits have repeatedly complained that the DOJ has not made clear what kinds of policy changes it is hoping to see.
The settlement in MLS PIN was initially announced before the Burnett trial, but its approval was delayed by a previous DOJ intervention. Lawyers for the plaintiffs note in the latest filing that their deal, which is structured very differently from the NAR settlement, has now been pending for 18 months.
“The Department has suggested that it has concerns regarding the terms of the settlement in this case. But it has consistently declined to provide Plaintiffs with an explanation of the specific changes it would like made to the Settlement Agreement. Such general concerns as the Department does express in its Statement are misplaced, if not already fully resolved,” they wrote.
A lawyer representing the DOJ previously told the judge overseeing the MLS PIN case that it did not want to see offers of compensation “anywhere,” referring to the NAR settlement, which had only recently been announced at that point.
Asking the judge to approve their settlement over the DOJ’s objections—as the judge overseeing Burnett already did—the plaintiffs in MLS PIN argued that their agreement, which does allow offers of compensation to be made on the MLS, is fair and pro-competitive.
“As discussed below, Plaintiffs believe that the MLS PIN Settlement is at least as good, if not better, for consumers than the NAR Settlement,” they said. “However, Plaintiffs were willing to discuss the issue with the Department in good faith, and thought at a minimum that establishing a baseline might facilitate further discussions.”
This is a developing story. Stay tuned to RISMedia for updates.
