In a court filing in federal court in Washington on Sunday, May 17, Northwest MLS (NWMLS) is accusing mega-brokerage Compass of promising, then failing to produce documents, datasets and communications in a lawsuit over private listing rules, as both parties have accused each other of anti-competitive practices.
The lawsuit, filed by Compass a little over a year ago, pits the independent MLS with about 30,000 subscribers against the nation’s largest brokerage. Compass claims that NWMLS bent rules and policies to undermine its private listing marketing practices, with NWMLS later counter-suing Compass, arguing that those same practices harm consumers and violate its rules—which Compass agreed to as a participant.
In the latest filing, NWMLS is asking a judge to force Compass to produce documents—everything from communications regarding its marketing strategies to datasets used to study the efficacy of pre-marketing—that it claims the brokerage promised to provide more than two weeks ago.
“In what appears to be an attempt to prejudice NWMLS by withholding outstanding material until the eve of the current discovery cutoff, Compass engages in bad faith litigation tactics. Such conduct is inexcusable,” NWMLS’s lawyers wrote.
NWMLS is also asking Judge Jamal Whitehead, who is overseeing the case, to force Compass to pay its legal costs related to the delay—adding to what has been a bitter dispute amid industry-wide conflict over pre-marketing practices.
“(W)ithout Compass’s production that it agreed to provide, NWMLS has been delayed—and thus prejudiced—in its ability to assess defenses, identify witnesses for deposition, and support upcoming expert analysis,” NWMLS wrote.
One of the documents that NWMLS’s lawyers filed was an email exchange involving Alex Baehr, a lawyer who is representing Compass in the lawsuit, and Vanessa Power, an attorney representing NWMLS. Power listed many of the document and information requests, claiming that Compass first promised to “produce supplemental documents” on February 19.
“Please provide the promised supplemental production by no later than Friday, April 24,” Power wrote, on April 20. The next day, Baehr wrote, “I’ll be responding to the below by no later than May 1.”
NWMLS is asking for a court order to compel Compass to produce the materials in question within two days, and pay NWMLS’s legal fees within two weeks. It is also asking Whitehead to mandate a four-month extension of current deadlines, claiming that the extra time is necessary to address its new claims and saying that Compass “flatly rejected” this proposal.
“We have nothing new to add at this time,” said a Compass spokesperson.
Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 6:06pm ET with a quote from Compass.
