Zillow-MRED antitrust battle shifts from courtroom to arbitration

Zillow’s claims against Chicagoland MLS Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) are heading to arbitration after U.S. District Court Judge John Tharp granted MRED’s motion to compel arbitration on Tuesday. In addition to this, in a separate ruling, the court also denied Zillow’s request for a preliminary injunction to block MRED from suspending its listing feed. These rulings come roughly four months after Zillow first filed its antitrust lawsuit against MRED and Compass International Holdings, alleging that the two firms conspired to withhold MRED’s listing feed from Zillow. According to the rulings, the court felt Zillow’s antitrust claims rest on MRED’s enforcement of a provision that prohibits MRED participants from excluding any IDX or VOW listing from display based on a list of criteria, including “the identity of any Participant, brokerage firm, subscriber, licensee or representative.” This provision is part of an agreement with MLS data feed provider MLS Grid, which contains a mandatory arbitration clause. While the agreement is not directly between MRED and Zillow, Tharp found that MRED could enforce the arbitration clause because the agreement expressly makes each MLS a third-par...