The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate.
Compass’s request for Zillow/Redfin documents currently denied
This past week saw new developments in the ongoing litigation between Compass and Zillow, the crux of which is Compass’s objections to Zillow’s new rules that remove listings from Zillow which have not been listed publicly within one business day of listing.
Compass has previously requested documents from Redfin—which is not a party to the lawsuit but is an alleged co-conspirator of Zillow. The requested documents would include communications between Redfin and Zillow from January 2024 to July 20, 2025. Such documents would, supposedly, show “coordination” between Redfin and Zillow in the former’s currently paused listing standards program which is similar to Zillow’s own program.
Redfin objected to this “burdensome” request and filed a legal request to block it, citing that “an antitrust action does not come with an automatic entitlement to force non-parties to reveal their competitive thinking” in its letter.
On Wednesday, October 29, 2025, Southern District of New York Judge Jeannette A. Vargas sided with Redfin in the handling of three specific documents: two blog post drafts of Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman’s announcement of the proposed listing ban and an unredacted copy of Redfin’s rental agreement with Zillow signed earlier this year.
Vargas denied Compass’s request that Redfin hand over the pertinent documents.
The decision came down to a matter of procedure; in Judge Vargas’ letter, she cites how Compass’s subpoenas list the “site of compliance” as Bellevue, Washington, ergo the request must be filed in that district rather than in New York.
Compass agent testimony allowed by judge
Despite its request to Redfin being blocked, another of Compass’s requests in the Zillow litigation was approved, specifically its plans to have a Compass agent testify as a witness against Zillow’s listing standards. The agent, who claims that she was told she had violated Zillow’s Listing Access Standards, is set to testify at a preliminary injunction hearing from November 18 – 21, 2025.
In a Thursday, October 30 ruling, Judge Vargas granted Compass’s request to have the witness appear at the preliminary injunction hearing and to redact certain personal information about the witness. So as to prevent “any potential prejudice,” Zillow is also permitted to conduct a two-hour deposition of the witness no later than Friday, November 7, 2025.
The crux of the November 18 hearing is Compass’s request to have Zillow’s rules blocked from implementation while the lawsuit transpires. In a pre-hearing brief, Compass alleged that Zillow implemented an anticompetitive “Zillow Ban” that punishes agents who allow homeowners to publicly market their listings with competing websites or brokerages, before listing on Zillow.
The new Zillow rules, Compass continued, are anticompetitive due to exerting control over what competitors and consumers do outside of Zillow, citing data showing agents who receive a warning from Zillow abandon pre-marketing strategies (and don’t receive a second warning or have their listing removed from Zillow).
Motion to delay CoStar v. CREXi lawsuit denied
In 2020, CoStar filed a lawsuit against rival CREXi, a commercial real estate listing platform, for alleged copyright infringement of nearly 50,000 photographs, per CoStar’s claims. On Thursday, October 30, Federal Judge Consuelo B. Marshall denied a request from CREXi—which has also filed an antitrust countersuit against CoStar—to suspend the lawsuit indefinitely, allowing it to move forward in federal court in Los Angeles.
Previously, in June 2025, Marshall issued an opinion that sided with CoStar and ruled that CREXi had indeed copied and cropped thousands of CoStar images via an offshore scheme.
Claiming that CREXi’s “wrongdoing has been overwhelmingly established,” CoStar General Counsel Gene Boxer said in a statement that the subsequent trial will “primarily focus on the size of the damages that CREXi must pay.
