From HousingWire:

Compass takes CRMLS fight to court and promises to cover agent fines

I’ve been delaying writing about this, too much reading. As you know, two weeks ago CRMLS beat Compass to the courthouse and filed in Manhattan. I told any MLS holding one of Compass’s demand letters to wait and see what that judge had to say before signing anything. On Friday Compass went and found a second judge. It filed its own antitrust suit in Riverside. Same fight, two federal courts, and both sides went shopping in the other guy’s hometown. CRMLS sued in Compass’s. Compass walked past its own federal courthouse in Manhattan and flew 2,500 miles to sue in the division CRMLS sits in, which tells you how badly it wants out of the district that told it no on Zillow in February.

From the complaint:

“Only the law and the homeowner should tell agents how to market a home, and CRMLS is neither the law nor the homeowner.”

Good line. Then read the rest of Friday’s announcement, where Compass adds itself to that list.

Compass will cover the fine for any agent at Compass, Coldwell Banker Realty or Sotheby’s International Realty, as long as the client asked for the public marketing in writing. Two conditions. Send the fine notice to a Compass email address, and assign Compass your right to sue CRMLS over it. Compass then folds your claim into its own case.

Call that what it is. Compass is buying plaintiffs, one fine notice at a time.

Remember the arithmetic. CRMLS says it issued 89 Rule 7.9 fines in 2025, eight of them to a Compass agent, and the fine tops out at $2,500. Call it twenty grand. Now, I’m even less of an attorney than Mrs. Zachria but as I read the complaint is asks for those back as restitution, buried in the prayer for relief. Paragraph 8 is where the real number lives, and the theory is this (and it’s a doozie). Compass couldn’t market a home publicly without putting it in the MLS, so it had no choice but to follow MLS policy, and MLS policy is what got brokerages sued over commissions.

Compass paid over $175 million to defend and settle lawsuits resulting from MLS policies it could not avoid… Although the settlements were the result of MLS rules, CRMLS paid nothing.

Compass wants an MLS to pay for the commission settlements. And in the complaint’s own words, the harms “must be paid back in triplicate.”

My head hurts.

It’s worth checking the word paid. Compass settled Gibson for $57.5 million. Getting anywhere near $175 million takes Anywhere’s $83.5 million settlement, and in Compass’s most recent quarterly filing, $54 million of that was still unpaid. Another $30 million of it was paid by Anywhere back in 2024, before Compass owned the company.

Nicole Aguilar at CRMLS sent over Art Carter’s full statement. Here’s the part that didn’t make the coverage:

“…no brokerage gains an unfair advantage by benefiting from the cooperative while withholding its own publicly marketed listings.”

The word for that is freeriding, and Art didn’t pick it at random. It’s the word the Manhattan judge used in February when he denied Compass’s injunction against Zillow, and CRMLS quotes that ruling three times in its own complaint.

Ten Compass enforcement cases were still open at CRMLS when it filed, eight of them on appeal. Those eight are the ballgame now, because an agent appealing a $2,500 fine wants it to go away. Compass’s lawyers want a transcript.

Compass also promised, on the record, to sue Unlock MLS. Twelve days ago. Maybe CRMLS is the test case and the rest of you are the docket.

So if you got one of those letters, here’s your homework this week. Find out what your enforcement process is worth once the defendant pre-pays the fine and owns the appeal. And I’d still wait before signing anything. Just know that waiting now means two judges instead of one, and every citation you write in the meantime is evidence somebody can buy.