On Friday, the nine justices United States Supreme Court They plan to hold a meeting to decide whether to participate in the legal battle between the two sides. National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Ministry of Justice (Department of Justice).
Documents in the case list Jan. 10 as the conference date for NAR’s writ of certiorari, which was filed in October. of court website It has indicated that it will announce its decision on Monday, January 13th.
The legal battle dates back to 2018, when the Justice Department launched an investigation into NAR’s now-defunct participation rules and current clear cooperation policy. The parties first reached a settlement in 2020, requiring NAR to be more transparent about brokerage fees and stop misrepresenting that buyer brokerage services are free. In exchange for NAR’s compliance, the Justice Department said it would close its investigation.
However, the Department of Justice withdrew the settlement in July 2021 under new leadership from the Biden administration. The Justice Department said terms of the agreement prevent regulators from continuing to examine certain association rules that could harm buyers and sellers.
NAR filed a petition in September 2021 to suspend or modify the Justice Department’s investigation into the industry association.
January 2023U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ruled that the terms of the settlement remained in effect and that allowing the investigation to continue would deprive NAR of the benefits it had negotiated in the original settlement.
Ministry of Justice appealed against the judgment In March 2023 and April 2024. U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit It reversed Kelly’s ruling and allowed the Justice Department to reopen the investigation.
In response to NAR’s writ of certiorari, the Justice Department wrote that it did not agree to close the investigation as part of the 2020 settlement. NAR disputed this and other claims made by the Justice Department in a response filed in late December, and even after agreeing to close the investigation as part of the settlement, the Justice Department He said he still had the ability to reopen the investigation.
NAR also reiterated its belief that allowing the Justice Department to reopen the investigation would set a dangerous precedent that the government is not required to honor its contractual commitments.
NAR’s response states, “If this decision is allowed to stand, it will affect the lives of millions of people every day, from sophisticated corporations vital to our nation’s economy to criminal defendants who face vast prosecutorial advantages of the government.” “This would destabilize the interests of the various private entities that contract with the government.”
“The following decisions also risk undermining the government’s sovereign ability to legitimize national interests through contracts. This is a concern that goes beyond the government’s desire to avoid the specific settlement at issue here. .”
The industry group also said the settlement does not promise not to reopen the investigation, and the Justice Department’s argument that the D.C. Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the agreement was the result of “special treatment.” I objected.
“The D.C. Circuit granted special treatment to the government by deciding exactly that.[r]”Despite various poor judgments on the interpretive scale, there was no commitment to refrain from reopening the investigation,” the filing states. “Without such preferential treatment, the Department of Justice could not have succeeded in its brazen reinterpretation of the settlement agreement.”
For the Supreme Court to hear the case, four of the nine justices must accept the case. The court typically receives about 100 to 150 total cases out of the 7,000 petitions it receives each year.
