Editor’s note: The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate.
Weichert and eXp’s settlements get preliminary approval
On May 23, Judge Mark Cohen in the Northern District of Georgia granted preliminary approval to eXp Realty and Weichert for their proposed settlements in the class-action commission lawsuits, as part of negotiations with plaintiffs in a lawsuit known as Hooper.
eXp Realty has previously agreed to pay $34 million in this settlement and Weichert has agreed to $8.5 million. The final approval for the settlement is scheduled for an October 28 hearing.
The eXp and Weichert hearings have been the subject of controversy as the two brokerages are also defendants in the larger Gibson commission case (filed in Missouri). The brokerages had been accused of conducting a “reverse auction,” or seeking out the plaintiffs who will settle for the lowest amount. In January 2025, Missouri Judge Stephen Bough (overseeing Gibson) ruled that the reverse auction accusation was “plausible.”
The counsel for plaintiffs in Hooper subsequently, on Mach 6, 2025, filed a motion in support of the proposed settlements and criticizing the proposed intervenors (meaning the plaintiffs attorneys in Gibson).
“In an effort to line their own pockets with yet more attorneys’ fees than the millions they have earned already, counsel for the proposed intervenors…attempt to torpedo the fair, reasonable and otherwise adequate settlements at issue here for the sole purpose of forcing the settling defendants to settle with (intervenors) in their competing Missouri action,” they wrote in filings earlier this year.
Later that March, Cohen subsequently denied the Gibson’s plaintiffs and attorneys’ motion to intervene in the Hooper case. Cohen’s own ruling granting preliminary approval to the settlement specifically noted and affirmed that “the court finds it has jurisdiction over the action, the plaintiffs and the settling defendants for the purposes of settlement.”
MLS PIN lawsuit sets new deadline for revised settlement agreement
On May 20, 2025, the parties in the class-action lawsuit Nosalek v. MLS Property Information Network, Inc. et al (filed in Massachusetts) filed for a “second and final” extension of time of nine days to file a revised settlement agreement. The deadline had previously been extended from April 22 to May 20.
Judge Patti Saris, overseeing the case, granted the extension on May 22. The following day, she set a preliminary hearing date for Tuesday, June 10.
The MLS Property Information Network (or MLS PIN) and case plaintiffs had previously reached a settlement. However, this agreement came under challenge from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The DOJ claimed that the proposed settlement did not go far enough in changing MLS rules to be more competitive. The case plaintiffs and MLS PIN reported “helpful and substantive” conversations with the DOJ’s antitrust division in April—according to the latest extension filing, discussions with the DOJ antitrust division concluded on Friday, May 16.
The extension filing claims that the revised settlement agreement “addresses concerns and reservations raised by the court” at a preliminary approval hearing on April 1. The extension is requested, the filing claims, to give parties sufficient time to collect client signatures.
