"We Didn't Pay a Dime," says CoStar Boss as Move Inc. Withdraws Trade Secrets Lawsuit

Move Inc., the parent company behind Realtor.com, has withdrawn a lawsuit against CoStar Group after months of back and forth between the two portal operators.

In July 2024, Move filed a federal complaint accusing CoStar Group and former Move and CoStar employee James Kaminsky of trade secret misappropriation. But Move has now withdrawn the lawsuit after CoStar threatened to pursue sanctions in March.

CoStar's press release says Move submitted a request to dismiss the case with prejudice—whereby the case could not be resubmitted to the courts in its current form.

CoStar boss Andy Florance said:

"This lawsuit was a PR stunt from the start—ridiculous, and totally devoid of merit. Nine months later, after a warning from our lawyers about sanctions, Move folded.

"We did not settle. We didn’t pay a dime. Move simply capitulated. From the beginning, Move had no evidence linking CoStar Group to any trade secrets, and this dismissal proves it. This was a desperate, anticompetitive stunt to slow down Homes.com as we passed Realtor.com in the marketplace. We said we would win this case, and we did."

CoStar has repeatedly branded the case 'a PR stunt' throughout proceedings, accusing the business of weaponizing its case to score points in the ongoing portal war between Homes.com and Realtor.com.

Florance previously told Online Marketplaces that "there’s no sports team with a better track record" than CoStar's legal department. The conclusion of this contentious—and at times, tedious—legal case is another win for CoStar.

A spokesperson for Realtor.com told Online Marketplaces:

"After catching our ex-employee brazenly accessing our strategy documents while employed at CoStar, we acted decisively, launching legal action to halt and prevent any ongoing exploitation of our intellectual property.

"Realtor.com has chosen to settle with our ex-employee, who is no longer an employee of CoStar. Given that he is no longer employed by CoStar and we have a settlement in place, we have chosen to dismiss our trade secrets lawsuit against CoStar because the risk of additional misuse has been mitigated. Our commitment to safeguarding our trade secrets remains unwavering and uncompromising."