Four retired federal judges are formally protesting the procedure by which the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) and other big brokerages, including Anywhere, settled the buyer commission cases, saying that the practice will encourage “forum-shopping” by class-action defendants. In a 22-page letter, known as an amicus curiae brief, Diane Wood, David Coar, G. Patrick Murphy…
A federal judge in Chicago has granted preliminary approval to settlement agreements with more than 20 real estate companies in a major antitrust lawsuit filed by recent homebuyers challenging commission practices in the residential real estate market. On May 26, U.S. District Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins approved opt-in agreements in the case Tuccori v. At…
Editor’s note: The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate. Hardy v. NAR: Brokers appeal MLS membership antitrust challenge Brokers Douglas Hardy, Glenn Champion and Dylan Tent filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit after a federal judge dismissed their antitrust lawsuit challenging…
Two federal judges this week appeared inclined to let a parallel homebuyer antitrust case against several brokerages move toward settlement, mostly denying plaintiffs who have fought to block or consolidate the competing litigation. The controversy came after Anywhere Real Estate struck a $9.6 million settlement in a copycat case that lawyers in the original and…
Plaintiffs in the largest buyer commission case (known as Batton) filed a motion to intervene Monday in a smaller commission case, Tuccori v. At World Properties, seeking to block preliminary approval of a proposed opt-in settlement by Anywhere Real Estate (a defendant in Batton) that they say would extinguish five years of homebuyer antitrust litigation…