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Court Denies Northwest MLS’s Bid To Dismiss Compass Antitrust Suit
04/23/2026On March 19, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington denied Northwest Multiple Listing Service’s (“NWMLS”) motion to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit brought by Compass, Inc. and Compass Washington, LLC, finding that Compass had plausibly alleged anticompetitive harm stemming from NWMLS's rules requiring member brokerages to list all properties on its platform before marketing them elsewhere. Compass Inc. v. Northwest Multiple Listing Service (W.D. Wash., March 19, 2026).
Multiple listing services (“MLSs”), including those offered by defendant, are shared databases through which licensed real estate brokers and brokerages list properties for sale in a given market. Plaintiff, which uses MLSs, is one of the largest residential real estate brokerages in the United States.
Plaintiff filed the complaint in April 2025, asserting claims under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, Washington's Consumer Protection Act, and state common-law tortious interference, alleging that defendant’s Rule 2, which prohibits member brokerages from marketing any property unless the listing has first been submitted to defendant’s platform, suppresses competition and restricts consumer choice. Plaintiff alleges defendant’s rule effectively blocks plaintiff’s “Private Exclusives,” which allow homeowners to pre-market their properties exclusively to plaintiff’s nationwide network of agents before listing on MLSs.
In its motion to dismiss, defendant did not contest that the provision of MLSs to real estate brokers, and the provision of real estate brokerage services to sellers of residential real property were proper product market definitions. Instead, defendant argued that plaintiff’s proposed geographic markets of Seattle and King County were artificially narrow and inconsistent with plaintiff’s own allegations of marketing homes to a nationwide network of buyers. Additionally, defendant argued that plaintiff alleged only harm to itself as a competitor, not harm to competition, and that plaintiff failed to allege harm to both buyers and sellers as is needed in a two-sided marketplace.
The Court rejected each of these arguments in turn. The Court stated that determining the relevant scope of the geographic market rests on “the area of effective competition where buyers of the relevant products can turn for alternative sources of supply.” In this case, the Court agreed that Seattle and King County were plausible geographic markets because “most sellers prefer to work with a real estate broker who is familiar with local market conditions and because homeowners often desire a residential real estate broker who is a member of the multiple listing service that serves the area in which they are selling a home.” Therefore, the only alternative sources of supply of MLSs are local. While buyers and buyer agents may search for listings from across the country, the alleged harms pertain to sellers and seller agents.
On the question of competitive harm, the Court found that plaintiff had plausibly alleged a diminishing quality of brokerage services, which is a harm to consumers and not merely harm to itself. Specifically, the complaint alleges that defendant’s rule deprives homeowners of the ability to choose how to market their properties and quashes innovation for brokerage services in the market. Finally, on the need to show harm to both sides of a two-sided market, the Court first noted lack of precedent that the real estate market should be defined as a two-sided market, thus it was not clear that Ohio v. Am. Express Co., 585 U.S. 529, 540 (2018) would apply. However, even if it did, the Court interpreted Amex to hold that plaintiff need not allege harm to both sides of the platform, but must establish an anticompetitive practice on the “market as a whole,” which may be “accomplished by showing that harm to one side outweighs any benefit to the other side.” The Court concluded that this would be a factual inquiry inappropriate for resolution on a motion to dismiss.
On plaintiff’s Sherman Act Section 2 claim, defendant did not challenge the first element that requires monopoly power, arguing only that plaintiff had not alleged exclusionary conduct. Relying on Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple, Inc., 67 F.4th 946, 974 (9th Cir. 2023), the Court stated that the anticompetitive-conduct requirement is essentially the same as the Rule of Reason inquiry applicable to Section 1 claims and accordingly found that plaintiff had plausibly stated anticompetitive conduct under Section 2 for the same reasons it stated a plausible Section 1 claim under the Rule of Reason.
For these reasons, the Court allowed all six of plaintiff’s claims to proceed.
