HousingWireHousingWire
While many real estate brokerages have made the choice to settle the commission lawsuits — including Side and JPAR just this week — others are still attempting to fight.
On Monday, several high profile real estate firms such as Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) — the parent company of HomeServices of America — Windermere Real Estate, Hanna Holdings, EXIT Realty, William Raveis, Crye-Leike and William L. Lyon & Associates each filed responses to claims made in the Gibson commission lawsuit.
All of the filing defendants denied the Gibson plaintiffs’ allegations and posed defenses against the claims.
Filed mere hours after a Missouri jury found real estate industry players liable for colluding to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions, the Gibson suit largely mirrors the claims made in the original commission lawsuits, including Sitzer/Burnett and Moehrl.
But the scope of the suit is much larger as it seeks class-action status for “all persons who listed properties on a Multiple Listing Service in the United States using a listing agent or broker affiliated with” one of the brokerage defendants and paid a buyer broker commission between Oct. 31, 2019, and the present.
In its filing, BHE — a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — denied any liability and the plaintiffs’ allegations that it violated federal antitrust laws.
“BHE denies that it engages in or engaged in any anticompetitive conduct or any conduct that has or had anticompetitive effects, including, but not limited to, implementing or adhering to any agreement, combination, or conspiracy that is anticompetitive,” its filing stated.
The filings made by the other defendants contained similar denials of wrongdoing, but things differed slightly in the various defenses they offered.
Most of the filings claimed that the plaintiffs lacked the right to sue, that the class members are required to arbitrate their claims based on the individual contracts they signed, and that the plaintiffs did not sustain any damage caused by the defendants. Additionally, they say that the claims are barred by the statute of limitations, that the plaintiffs agreed to the defendants’ alleged conduct, and that the conduct at issue in the suit is “pro-competitive.”
Hanna Holdings and Crye-Leike also claimed that the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) commission lawsuit settlement agreement bars the plaintiffs’ claims. Crye-Leike argues that it is a “released party” under the settlement, and Hanna Holdings argues that the Gibson plaintiffs’ claims were released as part of that settlement.
Hanna Holdings has previously been dismissed from another commission lawsuit in Pennsylvania.
