About seven months after Move, Inc. filed a lawsuit accusing CoStar of stealing trade secrets, the parent company of Realtor.com has moved to dismiss the case.
This comes after Realtor.com reached a settlement with a former employee at the center of the dispute.
Read on for a quick overview of the lawsuit and CoStar’s response.
The Backstory
The lawsuit, filed in July 2024, accused James Kaminsky—former head of News & Insights at Realtor.com—of accessing sensitive strategy docs after joining CoStar. According to Realtor.com, Kaminsky logged into Move servers more than 30 times, viewing internal plans tied to traffic growth, editorial direction, compensation data, and more.
The suit escalated quickly, pulling CoStar into the mix and fueling already intense competition between the two real estate portals, each gunning for second place behind Zillow.
At the time, CoStar didn’t hold back, labeling the suit “baseless.” Meanwhile, Realtor.com maintained it had a duty to protect its IP.
Case Dismissed
As of April 7, 2025, the U.S. District Court in California entered a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice, meaning the case is over and cannot be refiled. Each party agreed to pay its own legal fees.
A Realtor.com spokesperson stated the reason for the dismissal is that since Kaminsky no longer works at CoStar, the company believes the risk has been mitigated:
“After catching our ex-employee brazenly accessing our strategy documents while employed at CoStar, we acted decisively, launching legal action to halt and prevent any ongoing exploitation of our intellectual property. Realtor.com has chosen to settle with our ex-employee, who is no longer an employee of CoStar. Given that he is no longer employed by CoStar and we have a settlement in place, we have chosen to dismiss our trade secrets lawsuit against CoStar because the risk of additional misuse has been mitigated. Our commitment to safeguarding our trade secrets remains unwavering and uncompromising.”
CoStar’s Andy Florance Claims Victory
CoStar CEO Andy Florance took the dismissal as a win:
“Nine months later, after a warning from our lawyers about sanctions, Move folded. We did not settle. We didn’t pay a dime. Move simply capitulated. From the beginning, Move had no evidence linking CoStar Group to any trade secrets, and this dismissal proves it. This was a desperate, anticompetitive stunt to slow down Homes.com as we passed Realtor.com in the marketplace.”
Whether it was “capitulation” or simply a calculated decision to avoid further litigation, the end result is the same: CoStar is off the hook.
