CoStar Files Amicus Brief in Zillow Vs MRED Case

CoStar Group has filed an amicus brief rebuking a recent motion by its rival Zillow in an ongoing lawsuit against the MLS operator MRED and the brokerage Compass.

An amicus brief is a legal document filed by a party not involved in a court case to assist the courts with added, advisory context.

CoStar's brief argues that Zillow's recent motion for a preliminary injunction—that would force MRED to allow Zillow to show listings for the Chicagoland territory—is a 'have your cake and eat it' move that would facilitate Zillow's access to all listings while also allowing the portal to block pre-market listings.

A CoStar spokesperson said:

CoStar’s amicus brief demonstrates that Zillow’s requested relief would reward Zillow’s own anticompetitive conduct and create a profoundly asymmetric competitive landscape, contrary to the public interest.

Zillow wants, on one hand, unfettered access to MLS listings, while retaining the right to ban rival pre-market listings. On the other, by entering into exclusive agreements with 60 major brokerages, it has launched its own exclusive pre-market listings, Zillow Previews, and is blocking rivals like Homes.com from accessing them.

While Zillow lauds the “free flow” of listings as a necessity, that is a one-way street. Zillow wants the ability to get any listing it wants, to ban any listing it wants, and to block competitors from access to the newest listings, all in the service of enhancing Zillow’s monopoly. In short: Zillow is trying to lock up supply, and lock out competitors, while securing MLS unconditional access. That’s anticompetitve, anti-consumer and profoundly unfair.

Gene Boxer, General Counsel at CoStar Group, said:

"Zillow’s motion is a message to every MLS in the country: don’t interfere with Zillow’s takeover, or face litigation.

"Zillow wants a court order forcing MLSs to hand over their listings while Zillow hoards its own exclusive pre-market inventory—a breathtaking ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ proposition. The Court should see this motion for what it is: an attempt to weaponize the judicial system to entrench Zillow’s dominance at the expense of competition, consumers, and the MLS system that has served the industry for decades.

"Zillow’s strategy is simple and troubling: use its dominance to replace the non-profit MLS system with a Zillow-controlled ecosystem, locking out competitors while forcing MLSs to keep feeding Zillow data until Zillow no longer needs them. This is not a company defending consumer choice—this is a company that the FTC already sued for paying a rival to stop competing, that faces class actions for steering consumers to overpriced mortgages, and that feasts on the 99.7% of its users who don’t know who they’re contacting when they click 'Contact Agent' on Zillow’s platform.

"CoStar filed this amicus brief because the Court deserves the full picture, and the full picture reveals that Zillow’s claims of concern for consumers and competition are a smokescreen for its own anticompetitive ambitions.”

The brief also alleges that Zillow wants to replace the MLS ecosystem with its portal offering, takes aim at "Zillow Preview" listings, mortgage steering, and kickbacks.