Compass rentals lawsuit dismissed, refiled with new plaintiff
An antitrust complaint filed against the brokerage giant last week has been amended to include a new claim and a new start period for the class.
Compass was momentarily off the hook when a lawsuit filed Aug. 19 was voluntarily dismissed three days later — but the complaint was quickly refiled by a new plaintiff.
On Aug. 22, Peter Castaneda and Haley Gelfand dismissed their rental monopoly claims against Compass with prejudice, meaning they cannot sue the brokerage again over the same allegations. A new plaintiff, Charles Lieberman, then filed a slightly revised version of the suit on the same day.
The original case: The Castaneda/Gelfand complaint accused Compass of violating state and federal antitrust laws due to its outsized market share in New York City, citing a report that put Compass' market share in Manhattan at 80%. The plaintiffs also highlighted the brokerage's "Fall Marketing Playbook," which encouraged Compass agents to pull listings from StreetEasy, a NYC-specific home search portal owned by Zillow.
Compass' domination of the metro's rentals market, according to the filing, led to inflated rent prices and caused the plaintiffs to be "deprived of a normal functioning market."
The amended complaint: The Lieberman complaint is nearly identical to the Castaneda/Gelfand lawsuit, with a few notable exceptions.
Like the original complaint, Lieberman cites his own experience paying a "supracompetitive" rent price as an example of NYC's non-functioning market. The city's inflated rents, he alleges, are "due to deprivation of competition and the necessity to pay a brokers fee."
"This price differential, or a portion of it, [would] not have existed but for the severe reduction in public listings of rental units on StreetEasy," the filing adds.
The Aug. 19 complaint listed three claims: monopolization in violation of the Sherman Act (due to Compass' acquisition of most of its major competitors in New York); violation of the Donnelly Act (the New York state version of the federal antitrust law); and unjust enrichment (Compass reaped unfair financial gains).
Lieberman's filing includes another antitrust claim: monopoly leveraging, which is also tied to the Sherman Act. With this addition, the plaintiff is arguing that by pulling listings from StreetEasy, Compass used its rental listings market share as a weapon to effectively choke off the portal's supply and force renters onto Compass' own sites instead.
A narrower geographic market, extended time frame: Liebman limited his complaint to listings in Manhattan rather than the entire NYC metro area — the geographic market mentioned in the original complaint — most likely to align with the Manhattan-specific "80% market share" figure the suit relies on.
The amended complaint also moved the class start date from August 1 to January 1, 2026, which was just before Compass closed on its Anywhere acquisition. If the case is certified as a class action, it would thus encompass all Manhattan renters who began leasing non-rent-stabilized units from January until the date of the filing.
The plaintiff is requesting treble damages to include what renters allegedly overpaid and Compass' profits from its conduct.