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Despite some pushback, Redfin is now officially involved in Compass’s antitrust lawsuit against Zillow over the latter’s listing access standards policy. But the Rocket Companies-owned firm is not as involved as Compass was hoping.
On Wednesday, Judge Jeannette Vargas, a New York City-based District Court Judge ruled that Redfin has until 5 p.m. Thursday to file a letter with the court explaining why they want to maintain the documents under seal when the firm already provided them to Compass during discovery.
However, this might be all Compass gets from Redfin, as Judge Vargas denied the Robert Reffkin-helmed firm’s motion to compel Redfin to provide draft copies of Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman’s blog post about his firm’s listing access standards policy and to provide an unreacted version of the rental syndication deal between Redfin and Zillow.
According to the ruling, the court lacks the jurisdiction to make a decision on this motion to compel because Compass’s earlier subpoenas list the place of compliance as Bellevue, Washington. This means that the court district where compliance is required is the Western District of Washington.
Judge Vargas can only rule on this motion if Compass first filed its motion in the Western District of Washington and then transferred that motion to the Southern District of New York.
Additionally, the ruling noted that parties can only issue subpoenas to third-parties if the information they are seeking is “non privileged” and “relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.” In its own letter filed on Tuesday, Redfin claimed that the documents sought are both privileged and irrelevant to the lawsuit.
These document requests are all part of an expedited discovery process related to Compass’s motion for a preliminary injunction, in which it asks the court to block Zillow from enforcing its own listing access standards policy. A hearing on that motion is set to begin on Nov. 18, 2025.
