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With less than 48 hours to go before the start of a two-day hearing regarding Zillow’s preliminary injunction motion in its antitrust lawsuit against Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) and Compass International Holdings, the Chicagoland MLS is seeking to compel arbitration with the listing portal giant.
In documents filed on Monday, MRED told the court that Zillow had agreed to arbitrate any disputes that came out of its IDX and VOW agreements in its contract with the MLS.
Zillow has argued that these arbitration agreements are unenforceable because of ambiguity in the agreement’s language.
In contrast, MRED wrote in its filing that the “nature of intended third-party beneficiary status, as well as treatises and case law all confirm” that the MLS is entitled to enforce these arbitration clauses.
Additionally, MRED has argued that its “Participation Agreement,” which governs access to the MLS’s database, is separate from its IDX access agreements, which are central to the lawsuit and have their own mandatory arbitration clauses that Zillow must abide by.
Due to this, MRED has asked Judge John Tharp, who is overseeing the case, to stay all non-arbitrable claims and to deny Zillow’s preliminary injunction request. In the filing, MRED argued that the preliminary injunction would be redundant, as the court has already prevented MRED from suspending its listing feed to Zillow, as the preliminary injunction seeks to do, through a temporary restraining order.
In an emailed statement, a Zillow spokesperson told HousingWire that this was an attempt by MRED to “move this case behind closed doors, away from the public scrutiny that anticompetitive conduct deserves.”
“The public has a right to know what MRED and Compass did to Chicagoland buyers and sellers, and a right to see it resolved in open court,” the spokesperson added.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the court had not ruled on MRED’s motion. A two-day hearing regarding Zillow’s preliminary injunction motion, which was filed in mid-May, is set to begin on Wednesday.
The hearing is just one part of an antitrust lawsuit Zillow filed in mid-May, claiming that MRED and Compass conspired to withhold listing data and pressure Zillow to carry private “hidden” listings nationwide.
