Five Things We Learned in the Compass-Zillow Lawsuit

Compass filed a bombshell lawsuit against Zillow in New York federal court early Monday.

The lawsuit is focused on Zillow’s listing policy, dubbed the “Zillow Ban” in the complaint, that prohibits the public marketing of listings not uploaded to the multiple listing service or Zillow. The policy was announced on April 10 and is set to go into effect on June 30.

The fight, which has divided the industry titans, has been well-documented in social media posts, earnings calls and a state bill before the Illinois general assembly. But the lawsuit also revealed some of the behind-the-scenes drama and strategies that have played out beyond the public eye.

Here are the five most interesting things from the complaint:

1. A late-night phone call between Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman

Compass named Redfin and eXp Realty as co-conspirators for their role in adopting and adhering to Zillow’s listing policy.

Zillow and Redfin in February announced a partnership making Zillow the exclusive provider of multifamily rental listings on Redfin’s sites, in exchange for $100 million plus compensation for leads generated through Redfin. The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating the deal.

According to the lawsuit, Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman was not as privately aligned with Zillow when it came to its listing policy. The complaint states that “despite the two executives seldom speaking with one another,” Kelman texted Refkin 41 minutes after Zillow’s announcement to arrange a phone call.

In a 45-minute call later that night, Kelman admitted he agreed with some of Reffkin’s points about how pre-marketing and Zillow’s negative insights, but “had agreed to follow Zillow’s lead and would publicly announce as much,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that Kelman said “it is not good when Zillow and Compass are warring,” and suggested that Zillow could provide Compass with some sort of financial incentive if Compass slowed its three-phase marketing push or agreed to follow Zillow’s policies.

2. Zillow executives played hardball days before their policy announcement

The complaint also details a failed tete-a-tete between Zillow and Compass on April 1, with Zillow executives including co-founder Lloyd Frink, CEO Jeremy Wacksman and CFO Jeremy Hofmann.

In the meeting, Wacksman and Hofmann allegedly warned Compass multiple times that Zillow “will not allow Compass to have listings that are not on Zillow.” The complaint claims Reffkin pointed to other brokerage private listing platforms as well as Illinois-based listing service MRED, which has its own private listing network, to which Hofmann also claimed, “we will no longer allow that to happen.”

Compass claims in the complaint that Zillow also offered Compass financial incentives to abandon its aggressive three-phase marketing push, and that Wacksman suggested weekly meetings to work towards a deal that would ensure Compass’ listings ended up in Zillow.

3. A lesson in NAR policy history

The complaint goes back five years to paint a picture of Compass as a long-time underdog in its attempts to expand “seller choice” in how homes are listed.

The company alleged that the National Association of Realtors originally adopted its Clear Cooperation Policy in 2020 in an effort to impede the brokerage’s new off-MLS listing tools, Compass Private Exclusives and Compass Coming Soons, claiming that the policy was referred to as the “Compass Rule” within the industry.

Compass claims that CCP did not effectively slow its three-phase marketing rollout for a number of reasons, including the fact that many MLSes, which were in charge of local enforcement, did not require syndication to sites like Zillow, did not strictly enforce CCP and only levied fines, which did not have a strong deterrent effect.

In September 2024, Zillow sent a letter to NAR asking that the policy be revised to remove the office exclusive carveout, according to the complaint, which says Zillow mentioned Compass by name five times in the letter and no other brokerage more than once.

NAR instead adopted a new policy in March 2025 that allows for delayed marketing exemption listings, which can be publicly marketed without being syndicated through the MLS, which led Compass to allege that Zillow took “matters into its own hands” with its listing policy.

4. Compass’ business has been suffering

Compass has long touted the success of its three-phase marketing model and assured investors and agents that it would prevail in the fight over the public marketing of private listings.

On the company’s last earnings call, CFO Kalani Reelitz said that he continued to hear that Compass’ “inventory strategy, the depth of inventory [and] the three-phase marketing” have helped in agent recruitment.

Meanwhile, Reffkin told employees in an April internal email obtained by The Real Deal that “Compass private exclusives are not publicly marketed and are not impacted by this announcement,” referring to Zillow’s newly announced listing policy.

The complaint makes clear that is not entirely true. Although private exclusives themselves are not prohibited, Zillow’s listing policy severely curtails the Compass Private Exclusive model as currently constituted and outlaws the use of Compass Coming Soon for more than 24 hours.

“The Zillow Ban destroys Compass’s ability to do the first two phases of the strategy,” the complaint claims.

The ban, which only allows private listings to be shared on a 1:1 basis between agents of the same brokerage, means Compass agents cannot use the company’s internal private listing database and cannot share private listings with other brokerages.

The ban also means Compass “cannot continue its general branding and marketing of Private Exclusives on Compass.com without jeopardizing its home seller clients’ access to Zillow,” which include references on the company website to the number of private exclusives in a given geography.

“Put plainly, Zillow has granted itself the power to ban every Compass Private Exclusive listing from going to Zillow because of the way in which Compass markets and executes its Private Exclusive listing strategy internally and externally,” the brokerage says in the complaint.

Compass also claims it has already seen a negative effect on its business, with agents reporting conversations with sellers wondering if their listing will be banned from Zillow and worrying about their home being listed as a Coming Soon.

Sellers have also said they would consider switching brokerages if that meant their listing would be unbanned, and 11 of 12 company regional vice presidents have seen dips in the adoption of the three-phase marketing strategy since Zillow’s announcement.

5. A high-powered antitrust attorney

To pursue its claims against Zillow, Compass tapped representation with antitrust experience. The firm Crowell and Moring’s Kenneth Dintzer, who successfully led the Department of Justice antitrust case against Google, arguing that the company had monopolized general search and search advertising markets.

Dinzter had served in the DOJ for over 30 years before joining the law firm as a partner in December.

In its other antitrust case against Northwest Multiple Listing Services, the company retained Cooley LLP’s Ethan Glass, who had also previously served in the DOJ.

A Cooley team led by Glass had previously been defending NAR in two of its antitrust lawsuits related to commission payments, but replaced that team in May.