Mauricio Umansky Sues NAR Over Clear Cooperation Policy

Mauricio Umansky has re-opened a lawsuit targeting the National Association of Realtors’ Clear Cooperation Policy.

The suit filed by The Agency co-founder on behalf of the Pocket Listing Service claims NAR installed its CCP, which requires listings to be entered into the multiple listing service within 24 hours of being publicly marketed, in 2019 as a response to the competitive threat posed by the private listing database co-founded by Umansky.

The New York Times first reported the lawsuit.

The filing is the latest legal shot fired in the intensifying battle over who in the industry has control over listings.

Compass filed a complaint in New York federal court last week against Zillow, claiming that the listings aggregator leveraged its monopoly power to prevent competition in the marketplace when it announced new listing standards in April that penalized listings not uploaded to its website. The brokerage claimed in its complaint the CCP was known as the “Compass rule” and came about as a response to its piloting large-scale off-MLS marketing programs, including Private Exclusives and Coming Soons.

The PLS suit claims that CCP was a response to the Pocket Listing Service, which was launched in 2017 and reached nearly 20,000 licensed real estate professionals on its platform. The suit also names regional MLSes as non-party co-conspirators, including the California Regional Multiple Listing Service, Bright MLS and Midwest Real Estate Data.

“NAR and the NAR-affiliated MLSs, and the MLS Conspirators, were aware of this competitive threat and acted through the Clear Cooperation Policy and otherwise to eliminate this threat,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit is a revival of legal action that PLS filed in 2020 and agreed to pause last year. July 1 was the first date the complaint could be reopened.

NAR said it was previously “in discussions” to extend the agreement until “PLS ceased to engage,” and it will respond directly to the plaintiff’s claims in court.

“The Clear Cooperation Policy promotes transparency and competition in the real estate marketplace while still providing home sellers and their agents the option to list their property as an office exclusive,” the group said in a statement.

Umansky has picked up where the Department of Justice has seemingly left off. The DOJ reopened an investigation into NAR last year, partly spurred on by a purported concern that CCP limited competition from new listing service.

But in a note filed in court in March, the DOJ clarified it has not taken a position on the anticompetitive nature of CCP.
NAR itself rolled back some of the restrictiveness of its policy with an update in March that allowed for listings to be publicly marketed for a set period of time without being syndicated or published on the MLS.