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The two multiple listing services accused by Zillow of violating antitrust law in a lawsuit filed by the listings giant have filed a motion to dismiss the suit, arguing that Zillow has failed to prove their claims of monopoly activity and that the company is using antitrust law to attack a competitor.
Arizona Regional MLS (ARMLS) and MLS Inc. (Metro MLS) filed the motion to dismiss on Tuesday in federal court in Arizona, requesting that the complaint be dismissed with prejudice.
Zillow’s antitrust charges stem from accusations that Arizona Regional MLS and Metro MLS conspired to restrict access to Zillow’s home showing management platform ShowingTime in their markets, in favor of the showings platform Aligned Showings, which was launched last year by MLS Aligned, a consortium of multiple listing services.
In its original complaint, Zillow pointed out that the two MLSs, which operate in the Phoenix and Milwaukee regions, planned to disable their integrations with ShowingTime, effectively giving agents in those regions no choice but to use Aligned Showings, and amounting to an attempt at creating a local monopoly, as argued by Zillow. It also argued that multiple MLSs choosing to not renew their contracts with ShowingTime around the same time amounted to a conspiracy to monopolize.
In their motion to dismiss, ARMLS and Metro MLS argued that their decision to provide agents with an alternative showings platform was, in fact, competitive, not anti-competitive.
“In late 2023, with ShowingTime’s contracts for integrated services ending in two regional markets, the MLS defendants each made an independent assessment determined it is in their best interests (and their subscriber members’ best interest) to choose an alternate vendor to provide this alternate service,” the filing reads. “By definition, the addition of a new player into an already crowded market increases competition, and the MLS defendants obviously have a financial interest in the success of that joint venture.”
The defendants also pointed out ShowingTime’s status as the leading home showing platform in the United States, arguing that suing a smaller upstart competitor was a misuse of antitrust law and that ShowingTime lost ground in just two out of the hundreds of MLS markets across the nation. ShowingTime is currently used by 370 MLSs and over one million individual real estate agents in North America.
“The notion that ShowingTime’s loss of two integration contracts in a national market of hundreds of MLSs should give rise to antitrust liability is unserious,” the filing reads. “Plaintiffs’ claims are directly at odds with the premise of the antitrust laws and, if successful, would subvert them.”
Zillow declined to comment on the filing.
