So last Friday, the Department of Justice formally filed an appeal of the trial court’s ruling in its fight against NAR with the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. This was as obvious and as predictable as the sun rising in the East. I wrote about that in a special public VIP post … Read more
[This is a VIP post, but given its importance and the fact that I’d love to hear from antitrust experts outside of the industry, I am opening it up to the public for a while. But hey, if you dig this kind of thing, consider subscribing to VIP.] A while back, when this case was … Read more
I had heard that CMLS had retained two former DOJ and FTC attorneys to help them draft a white paper laying out all of the reasons why the MLS is a force for good in the world, and Inman News published confirmation in this story: In order to do this, Batts and Carson are working … Read more
I promised a Part 2 where I would treat the subject of regulation, which I think is the real Big Guns of the upcoming war between the United States and NAR. If you missed Part 1, where I dig into why the US DOJ pulled out of a settlement with NAR (which it has never … Read more
[UPDATE: To celebrate Independence Day, I’ve decided to make this one open to everyone. My VIP subscribers have mostly already read it over the weekend anyhow, and the issue is important enough to the industry as a whole that I thought it an appropriate July Fourth gift of sorts. Yay, ‘Murica!] I was traveling most … Read more
In case you haven’t already heard, the U.S. Department of Justice has taken the rare step of intervening in a civil case with a Statement of Interest on Behalf of the United States of America. Interesting note: the intervention was in the Sitzer case out of Missouri rather than the Moehrl case in Illinois, which … Read more
In the all-important Moehrl v. NAR case, NAR has filed a motion to dismiss, and submitted a brief in support of that motion. I’ll embed it below. This is all but guaranteed in just about any serious civil litigation these days involving serious lawyers who get paid by the hour. I remember my Civil Procedures … Read more
Boy, some things are happening this week. Last night, I saw that NAR had filed its response in the form of a motion to dismiss the Moehrl v. NAR case. That was entirely expected, and now that I have a copy of the filing (Thanks Jay Thompson!) I can look at what the theory of … Read more
I’m deep into writing the October Red Dot, but Andrew Flachner of RealScout sent me a personal email this morning with his Open Letter to the industry attached. He’s spoken to me before about this initiative, and asked if I would write about it. Well, the Open Letter is now published, and Inman News has … Read more