Judge Grants CoStar's Motion in Ongoing Legal Battle Against Realtor.com Parent

The legal battle between CoStar Group and portal rival Move Inc. (parent of Realtor.com) continues as a court in Los Angeles yesterday granted CoStar's motion for expedited discovery in the case related to James Kaminsky, the former Realtor.com employee who now works for CoStar.

The ruling handed down by Judge George H. Wu essentially means that both sides must exchange information related to the case. In requesting the discovery motion CoStar was keen for Move to reveal the exact nature of its complaint against Kaminsky and how the ex-Realtor.com Editor's actions allegedly damaged its business.

The legal spat between the two portal rivals began earlier this month when Move filed a lawsuit against CoStar claiming that its former News & Insights Editor James Kaminsky "stole confidential business information" and "established surreptitious, undetected ongoing access to allow himself (and thus CoStar) to spy on Move's highly confidential documents."

Since then Move has filed for a preliminary injunction—essentially an attempt to have the court block "any further unauthorized access" to the documents at the centre of the case—and CoStar has put Kaminsky on administrative leave "out of an abundance of caution".

Kaminsky has also released a statement via his lawyers explaining his actions as having been motivated by privacy concerns and a desire to help himself in his job search after being laid off by Move in January 2024.

“Before leaving Move and ultimately returning my laptop computer to Move, I did not have time to carefully prune the selection of emails that I wanted to delete for personal privacy purposes, so I erased the majority of my emails and electronic files to prevent them from being seen by the technology personnel who would be processing my computer return.”

“I had no interest in saving these documents, sharing these documents, or using those documents for any reason beyond short term help in generating job hunting materials for myself. I gave myself what I assumed would be temporary access to them in the most transparent and public way I know: literally putting my name on them.”

CoStar's CEO, Andy Florance backed his employee in comments made on stage at the Inman Connect real estate agent event yesterday in Las Vegas saying that his firm would not let Kaminsky "be the fall guy" for Move's legal action which he called "a PR stunt".

A deadline for the parties sharing the discovery information has been set for August 5th with Move's motion for a preliminary injunction set for September 23rd.

CoStar's lawyers will also be paying close attention to court proceedings on the other side of the country as Matterport—the subject of a $1.6 billion acquisition bid from CoStar—appealed a Delaware court ruling granting its former CEO the right to claim $79 million.

The issue relates to company by-laws that Matterport introduced before going public in 2021 that restricted shareholders from selling stock as the company stabilized. Brown challenged these bylaws in a 2022 lawsuit, arguing that his shares were excluded from the lockup period and was right to do so in the opinion of the Judge.

In May a judge ruled that Brown was entitled to compensation from Matterport but not the $141 million he had originally sued for.

The digital twin specialist filed the appeal on Tuesday a few days after its shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of accepting CoStar's bid.

CoStar has not commented directly on the court proceedings but there is a possibility that if Matterport's appeal is unsuccessful the acquisition deal could run into difficulty.